


Starling City's Own Pollen Vector

by fiacresgirl



Series: Pollen Vector 'Verse [1]
Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Angst, Awkward Sexual Situations, Canon Divergence, Dream Sex, F/M, Family, Forgiveness, Original Male Character - Freeform, Pregnancy Scares, Regret, Serial Rapist, Sex Pollen, This one has a lot of sex okay?, Weaponized Sex Pollen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-09
Updated: 2017-04-13
Packaged: 2018-05-19 10:06:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 14
Words: 58,155
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5963350
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fiacresgirl/pseuds/fiacresgirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p></p><div class="center">
  <p> </p>
  <p>    <img/><br/></p>
</div>When a new criminal begins targeting Starling City's young women with a weaponized aphrodisiac, Original Team Arrow steps out into the field to catch him. Things go awry.<p> </p><p> </p><p>Set in the beginning of Season 2, after the Dollmaker, but before Russia. Diverges from canon, obviously.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>A huge thank you to <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/users/quiveringbunny/pseuds/quiveringbunny">quiveringbunny</a> for the accompanying fanart!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. To Catch a Rapist

She was standing on a street corner wearing navy blue go-go boots and a pleated plaid skirt so short it might as well have been a hanky. Her crisp white shirt was buttoned all the way to its peter pan collar, though, and her blond long hair was parted in the center and tied in loose braids. Felicity could have bought this outfit at Halloween City in the sexy-schoolgirl section, it was that cliché, but all of their research indicated this would be the most effective way to draw this creeper out from whatever basement he spent the rest of his life. When he wasn’t raping his way through his list of pre-selected girls.

“Felicity, I’m right here,” Oliver said through the comms, and she knew he was. They’d arrived early, before it got dark, and staked out the closest possible place for him so that this wouldn’t be another Dollmaker fracas. He wouldn’t need to zipline down from across the street this time; he was literally around the corner. She had a tracker in her boots and one sewn into her bra as well. They weren’t taking any chances that she would wake up the next morning, like the last girl, with ASK ME HOW MANY TIMES I CAME scrawled across her stomach in permanent black marker.

“I know,” she whispered, trying to sound confident, but the truth was this loser’s reddit posts had shaken her up. He wasn’t a professional, that was clear. YouWAN2’s posts were full of grammatical errors and slurs against women, but he was smart enough to hide his electronic footprints. She hadn’t been able to determine his identity or his geographic location. Only his victim choices pointed to the fact that he was a Starling City native. All of the girls he targeted went to either one of the city’s three colleges or its university. Except for the high school girls - all of them went to private school.

From the police records it was clear what this guy’s method was: stalk his victim, show up where she partied, spray her in the face with his homemade Spanish fly, and take her to a cheap motel and let her do all the work until she lost consciousness. Then he’d whip out his marker and his camera for one last violation.

Whatever his concoction was, it also had a cloaking effect: his victims, to a one, couldn't remember what he looked like. They also didn’t want to press charges - which didn’t make sense until you realized that he was blackmailing them. For every encounter he had audio and video, and he threatened to release it unless they paid him for his “discretion.”

It was your textbook perfect crime, and Team Arrow wouldn’t have even been aware it was happening in Starling if YouWAN2’s latest victim, Kayla Whitestone, hadn’t called his bluff and refused to pay up. He’d released her video on reddit.com three days ago, it had gone viral, and Kayla had thrown herself off of her parents’ condo roof - twenty stories down into Star Plaza’s terraced cement garden.

The next morning 20 pictures of different women’s stomachs, markered with misogyny, were on reddit with the notation “Video coming (LOL) soon?” and an advertisement for his product, a sex elixir, guaranteed to make _any_ girl a nymphomaniac or your money back. $10K per ounce.

Felicity was on the case.

Oliver didn’t like it. Diggle didn’t either, but Oliver _really_ objected. “We’ll get this guy, Felicity; we will, but you’re getting too involved in this,” he said more than once.

Still, what was she supposed to do? Sit back and watch him post pictures of beautiful young women with captions like: “You’ll sleep with this guy,” under a pic of some ‘roided out football player, and then, “but not this one?” with a pic of Starling University’s Pure Chemistry 2012 award winner.

YouWAN2 spent a lot of time ranting about good-looking douchebags’ success with girls. Posting pic after pic of these guys, all of them covered with that familiar red circle with its diagonal line. Oliver Queen showed up in one diatribe, and, as much as she hated this guy, Felicity had had to stifle a laugh. The serial killer look Oliver was sporting in the picture YouWAN2 had chosen was on point, and Oliver _was_ a manwhore. It had to be said.

Not that he slept with every girl he knew. There was Felicity, for instance. Oliver wasn’t sleeping with her, even though everyone at Queen Consolidated believed he was. Felicity only wished that were true. Or did she? She couldn’t decide. His track record with women was terrible, and they had a solid working friendship with a surprising amount of trust. But his abs? When he worked out on the salmon ladder in front of her work station or hung down from the rafters one handed, she couldn’t help but think about licking that line of sweat that started in the center of his chest and ran lazily into that thickening line of hair low on his stomach. She thought about it a _lot_.

Felicity sighed. It was a moral dilemma she didn’t have to resolve, since he showed no interest in _taking their relationship to the next level_. Gag. She supposed if they did lose their minds one day, have a few too many in the lair or whatever, she might be out of a job on Team Arrow because Oliver’s relationships tended to burn hot and then burn out. How could you go from touching…and licking and sucking... _all of that_ and then calmly discuss signal triangulation again?

“You’re sure this is the place, Felicity?” Diggle asked through the comms. He was across the street watching from the van.

“I created an algorithm that factored in the meeting places for all of these attacks,” she said. She insisted on calling them _attacks_ ; there were disturbing consent issues men tended to be quick to overlook when it came to aroused women, although she couldn’t fault either Dig or Oliver for any of their responses to these crimes. “There are three best possibilities for a Friday night. This one is the most likely since YouWAN2 likes to move around and it’s Sports Night at St. Elmo’s. We know how he feels about sports nights and jocks.”

“This guy’s a sick tool,” She heard Oliver grumble into the comms.

“That’s not a newsflash,” Digg said. “Aren’t you getting cold out there?”  

As a matter of fact she was, and she felt utterly ridiculous in this get up at a bar on sports night. This was a popular place for college kids, and the line to get in was around the corner. It was getting awkward telling everyone to cut in front of her in line too. They kept giving her weird looks. She had to be outside, though. This guy always dosed his victims outside, probably because he wanted to lure them away without notice. Spraying a potent aphrodisiac inside a crowded club could result in a panic as well.

Felicity pulled at the hem of her dress, glad she was at least wearing generous underwear. Her thighs were freezing, though. A Starling City bus whooshed by, and she breathed in a noseful of frigid diesel-scented air.  

“Halloween was months ago,” one girl said, bumping into her and laughing as she passed. Her boyfriend was built like a linebacker and had clearly already had a few, but he smiled down at his girlfriend anyway like she’d said something terribly witty.

“Ha ha,” Felicity said. “Yeah, I know.”

“Then why are you dressed like some Catholic jailbait? A cheerleader outfit would be better for the playoffs.” She rolled her eyes so hard her fake lashes nearly tangled.

Felicity opened her mouth to speak.

“Focus, Felicity,” Oliver said. “Keep scanning the crowd.”

Focus. Why did he always tell her to focus? She was focused. If she were any more focused she’d be a microscope. “But--” she said.

“Do you see anyone who might look like our guy?”

“A douche with an aerosol can?” Felicity asked. “No.” But just then a guy crossed the street and caught her attention. He was thin, with narrow shoulders and facial hair. “Wait,” she said, turning away to mask her interest. “There’s someone coming towards me.”

“I see him,” Dig said. “Short guy, brown hair. He’s making a beeline towards you.”

Felicity felt rather than saw Oliver move closer. “I don’t like this. Lance is right. This is dangling her like meat.”

“ _She’s_ making the choice to dangle herself,” Felicity said, forcing a smile in Oliver’s direction.

“The Dollmaker,” Oliver muttered.

“Didn’t get me,” Felicity said.

“Didn’t get her,” Dig said.

“That was lucky,” Oliver said. “He had you for a moment.”

“There were three guys on top of me,” Felicity said. “And now I’ve got two. I mean not on top of me on top of me--”

“We get it Felicity,” Dig said. "He’s approaching from behind you. Remember, if for any reason you do get sprayed, close your eyes--”

“So I can’t imprint on him,” Felicity said. “I know, I know. I’m not going to get sprayed, though. I think I’ll know if he has a spray can on him.”

“Excuse me,” someone said from behind, and Felicity turned to see a man with a reddish goatee and sideburns so long he looked like that Civil War general - what was his name? - Burnside. Were those real? What were guys thinking these days with their facial hair? In her super high heels their eyes were level.

The man held out a map, and she exhaled. He just wanted directions. “Yes?” she said and leaned forward, and then he pulled something out of his pocket and shoved it inside the map and towards her face. She felt rather than saw the spray hit her and shut her eyes tight.

“Felicity!” Oliver yelled through the comms. “Close your eyes.”

“They’re closed,” she said. Whatever the aerosol was, it was bitter on her lips, and she spat the residue out.

The man next to her asked, “Is something wrong? Here, let me look at you. Open your eyes.” She kept them tightly closed, though. She was absolutely not going to turn into a love slave for disgusting Major Perv here.

No one in the crowd a few steps away from her noticed anything, they were all arguing about the Patriots and something about Tom Brady, but the sound of footsteps hitting the pavement came from behind her. “Felicity!” Oliver said, out of breath, and she felt his rough hand palm her cheek. “Are you okay?” Before she stopped to think, she opened her eyes and looked him right in the face. His eyes were covered with sloppy green greasepaint, but those smudges couldn’t mask the beauty of his angular features: his high cheekbones, the broad bridge of his nose, his firm but soft-looking lips, or his gorgeous blue eyes. Eyes that were very anxious right now.

She gulped. “Fine,” she said. “I’m fine. Get _him_!”

Oliver turned towards the guy who had made a break down the sidewalk and was darting into the street. “Hey!” he yelled and sprinted after him, vaulting with one arm a concrete median barrier that was placed to route traffic around construction. Oliver soon caught up with him and grabbed him by the shoulder to stop him, but the man with the sideburns turned and sprayed Oliver right in the face.

“Oliver!” Felicity yelled, but she saw that he had put his forearm up and was shielding his eyes. She ran over to help him, but she was awkward in her five-inch go-go boots, and the man escaped across the street towards a lot full of brush and old tires.

“Dig, he’s moving,” she said.

“I see him,” Dig said. “I can tail him and wait until he puts away his bottle of roofie juice before I grab him. Are you two okay? Maybe priority number one is getting you to a hospital.”

“Get him,” Oliver said, his voice a growl. Felicity could tell he was angry now. She reached him and put her hand on his shoulder.

“Go, Diggle,” she said, fighting waves of nausea and panic. “Hunt this guy down. We can handle ourselves here.”

“Roger that,” Dig said, a little uncertainty in his voice, and the long blue van pulled away from the curb across the street and drove in the direction the man had run.

Oliver was still hunched over. She noticed the play of his muscles through the tight green leather. Were they usually so defined? And his pants were so tight. They were always tight, but were they always _this_ tight? She’d always wondered who had made this outfit for him because it fit him like a glove. She slid her hand up his back to his shoulder and felt the tendons there clench.

“Don’t,” Oliver said, arm still over his eyes. “If I don’t look at anyone, I can tough this out on my own.”

“Tough this out?” Felicity said. “Tough out what? Oliver, I’m fine.” But really, the one who was _fine_ was him. Something about him was on fire, in fact, tonight. It was still arctic out. She could see her breath form in little puffs in the air when she talked, but she wasn’t cold any longer. She was warm. Goosebumps broke out all over her exposed thighs. She had a sudden impulse to insert herself under his arm. Maybe the guy had punched him and she hadn’t noticed. He was still shielding his face. She wriggled into his chest. “Are you hurt? Here, I’ll help you.”

“Get away,” Oliver said.

Well, that was rude, but maybe he couldn’t help it. He was probably in pain. She touched his chest, feeling for sources of distress. The distressing thing was how firm his abs were, though. She was in a position - Ha! - to know how firm they truly were, but she’d never before felt those hard ridges, one right after the other, all the way down his stomach...

Felicity, no,” he said and pulled away from her, still keeping his eyes averted. She lost her balance as she stepped back and gasped as she tried to right herself on her teetering heels. She could feel herself toppling butt first toward the cement when he grabbed her and hauled her against him. She saw his expression change from concern to something like horror, as he took her in from her head to her toes and then his eyes moved back up to hers. He sighed heavily.

Again, rude. Maybe this wasn’t her best look, but she couldn’t help it. She was under cover. She grinned. Under cover. Suddenly those words seemed hysterically funny. She’d like to be under cover, oh, yes she would. Under the covers with him. She laughed out loud. This was turning into such a funny evening. God, it was hot out.

“Look,” Oliver said, “we’ve got to get out of here. You’re obviously beginning to hallucinate, and I won’t be far behind you. Where can we go? We need to talk about this.”

“Your place or mine?” She clamped her lips together so a giggle wouldn’t slip out.

“Yours,” Oliver said. “Mine is 15 miles away. Yours is about five minutes from here.” He grabbed her hand and jerked her toward the parking lot where his motorcycle was.

“Oh, we’re going there on your motorcycle? I’ve always wanted to _ride your hog_ ,” she said. “Not in the dirty way. Or not exclusively.” There it went, that giggle, followed by another.

Oliver looked heavenward. “Yes. For two minutes. Tops.” He slung his leg over the seat and put the keys into the ignition. “Hop on.”

Felicity gingerly put a leg over the seat and wobbled a bit. Oliver reached back and jerked her against him. “Put your arms around my waist,” he said. “Hold on, and lean when I lean. Close your eyes and concentrate on that. I’ll go as slow as I can.”

She wound her arms around his waist. He wasn’t fat at all, but his body was solid, thick with muscle, even here at the waist. She shivered.

“Are your hands cold?” he asked. “You can stick them in my pockets if they are.” He jump started the bike and she held on to him as tightly as she could. She stared up at the stars as he drove off into the night. They sparkled down at her, shining so brightly she had to close her eyes. They must be getting closer. Maybe that was why it was so warm all of a sudden.

“Where are we going?” she asked. Wait, she knew. She scrunched up her nose and thought hard. “Oh yeah, to my place,” she said. “To have _sex._ ”


	2. Chasing the Need

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am absolutely positive this is the smuttiest thing I've ever written. Enjoy.

“To have sex,” she said, right into his ear in a low voice, and Oliver fought hard to keep control of both the bike and himself. There was a trick to fighting off hallucinations, but he didn’t know if he could manage it against whatever that asshole had sprayed him with. He had some experience with using drugs recreationally, but he thought Felicity had said that the effects of this one were largely sexual in nature, not hallucinogenic. He concentrated on the cold air hitting his face as he maneuvered the bike through the curving streets of Felicity’s townhouse subdivision. He wasn’t cold now - he felt his skin wake up and start to throb and itch - but the wind pricked at his face, and he focused on the pain to keep himself lucid.

Oliver parked the bike in front of the steps to her doorway, and then helped ease Felicity off of it. Those heels she was wearing were sexy as hell, but they kept her off balance pretty much all of the time. He took her arm in his. “You’ve got your key?” he asked.

“My key?” She patted herself down. “Oh, yeah. I put it in my bra.” She unbuttoned her entire blouse and pulled it out. Oliver tried to hold his eyes away from her breasts, but her skin actually shone in the lamplight, and she was...she was sweating. He licked his lips, grabbed the key, and quickly opened the door. He put his hand in the hollow of her back and shoved her inside, then he followed and slammed the door behind him, flicking the lock. It made a loud click as it slid into place, and Oliver actually felt his pulse thud at the base of his neck.

“Felicity,” he said, flipping on a light. “We have to talk.”

“We don’t,” she said. “I know that seems unlike me, but surprisingly enough, I don’t feel like talking just now. I feel like climbing you like a tree.” Another burble of laughter came from her mouth. “Did I just say that? Oh. It’s true. We talk all the time. Talk talk talk talk. Well, I talk, and you sort of brood and glower.”

Felicity walked her fingers down his arm. “You’ve got nice branches. Looks like you’re growing a new one down here.” She cupped him, and Oliver jerked away from her. He swallowed and went through his focusing routine in his head at warp speed, but her eyes were looking up at him, huge and electric with lust, pupils blown so hard the blue was just a rim. She wasn’t wearing her glasses. Why wasn’t she wearing her glasses? Oh, right. She’d been the bait for their serial rapist.

He blinked. Why had he let her do that? It seemed extra stupid now. Oliver reached into a side pocket and pulled out a matchbook. He opened it, ripped off a match, lit it, and then breathed in the scent. It cleared his head a little. What was it he needed to do? Talk to Felicity. He lit another match and held it under her nose.

“Focus,” he said. “I’m starting to lose it, and I need to know you’re okay with this. Try to think of something you really don’t like.”

“Kangaroos!” she said, bouncing on the balls of her feet. “They’re awful. They should be cute because they bounce everywhere, but they’re not. They're not cute _at all_.” She ripped off her blouse and he watched her firm breasts rise and fall with her breaths. He frowned. This wasn’t working. He put his hands on her shoulders.

“Felicity, I think we’re going to have sex. I’m not sure I can keep my hands off you much longer.”

“I hope so! I mean, I hope not.” She frowned too.

“That’s going to change things. When we wake up, you know...we’ll have slept together. You’ll have had sex with me. I know you’re not clearheaded, but I need to know you’re okay with having sex with me. As a friend.” He shook her a little. He needed her eyes to be coherent for just a second; he wasn’t going to be her rapist.

And there she was, his Felicity. She surfaced like the die face in a magic 8-ball for just a second, and she nodded at him. “Yes,” she said. “I’m okay with it. If I have to go through this with someone, I’m glad it’s you.”

He breathed out.

“Now let’s do this thing,” she said, and she pulled his head down to hers and kissed him.

 

>>\--->

 

Felicity tasted Oliver’s lips, and they were so gorgeous. Soft and pliant, hot against hers. He was so hot. His skin felt like it was on fire, and she wanted to strip and lay down in front of it and fuck all night. She pushed her tongue into his mouth and licked at his teeth. His teeth were so straight and white. Could they be real? She’d always wondered. When he bit down lightly on her tongue, they felt real enough. Sexy teeth, sexy tongue. Sexy Oliver. He began unzipping his green leather jacket, and she put a hand over his to stop him. “Leave it on,” she said. “Don’t remove anything, just, uh, take out what you need to.”

He laughed into her mouth. “Take out what I _need_ to? Felicity.’”

Felicity pulled away from him. “Look, the suit’s always turned me on, okay?” She ran her hands over the smooth leather covering his chest and down his front to the zipper holding the strained elastic mesh together. “And if you stay in it, then this is something that happened with the vigilante. That will make this easier, right?”

The blue of Oliver’s eyes went dark. Was this the hallucinogenic effect the drug had? Because his eyes seemed to actually hum. She felt the vibration run through her straight to her core.  “Alright,” he said finally.

“Good,” she said, nodding firmly.

“So you’ve thought about this?” he asked.

Oops. People made jokes about Oliver’s intelligence, but he was highly observant. She’d always known that.

“I might have,” she said. “Once or twice.”

He smiled, and rotated her hips so she faced the couch. Down came the zipper. “One or twice,” he said. He pushed her skirt down, and it fell at her feet. She tried to kick it off, but it got stuck on the heel of her boot. “I’ve thought about it countless times.” He licked the skin at the back of her neck, and his stubble brushed against her nape. She shivered.

“I mean,” Oliver said, reaching down and grabbing her calf, “every time you turned around and walked away from me, I had a flash of this. Or nearly. You’ve been my executive assistant for months now. How many times have you walked back to your desk?” He lifted her leg, dislodged the skirt, and then ran his palm up the inside of her thigh.

“Oh,” she said. “A lot.”

“Yeah, a lot,” he said. “Hmmm, these are industrial-strength panties you’ve got on.”

Felicity glanced down and then closed her eyes. She’d forgotten about the Spanx she put on earlier as both another layer and a piece of armor. A woman didn’t face down a rapist clad in only a thong. But now...the company marketed this particular garment as “firm control,” and that was quite a bit more than she had over herself in this moment. “Have you got a knife?” she asked.

“A knife?” There was that laugh in his voice again.

“Somewhere in your outfit there. You must do this kind of thing all of the time.” She looked over her shoulder at him.

“Cut underwear off of women?” Oliver said. “Daily.”

She huffed. “Remove things that are _hard to remove_ ,” she said. She tugged at her Spanx but they snapped back at her. Oliver’s lips twitched against her shoulder.

“I’m a vigilante, not a pirate,” Oliver said. “We’ve had this conversation.” He ran his hands over the nylon and spandex. “No zipper.”

“No zipper,” she said and turned back to him. God, he was huge. And absolutely delicious. Her embarrassment over this entire situation couldn’t mask that fact. He was looking at her hips, concentrating, and the skin over his nose and cheeks was slightly pink. He was sweating lightly, and his tongue came out to lick his lips. Suddenly she didn’t care what kind of measures they needed to employ - knives, crowbars, an atomic shrink ray - she was getting out this underwear.

“Okay, we can do this,” she said. “It’s just Spandex.” She dug her fingernails under the waistline and started to tug them down.

“Here, let me,” Oliver said. He put his hands over hers and pulled them away and down, his palms sliding over her hips, and his thumbs down the wedge between her thighs. His hands were large and the underwear put up a fight. As he bent over she saw the sweat bead on his forehead, and she stuck out her tongue and licked at it. Salty. She licked it again with the flat of her tongue.

He looked up at her, his eyes glazed, and she had only a moment to close her eyes and suck in a breath before he crushed her mouth to his. His hands were still buried in her panties. She bucked against him, and he forced her backward toward the couch. Its rough upholstery gripped her back while her breasts, still clad in her satin bra, slipped over the leather of Oliver’s jacket. His tongue slipped in between her lips and she groaned loudly. Hot and cold, rough and smooth, in and out. It was so much. Almost too much.

“Wet,” he said, “so wet.” One of his thumbs was flat against her clit, pushing and circling. “And smooth. You’re very…”

She realized what he was talking about. “Oh, yeah. Well some of his victims...I wasn’t taking any chances.”

His hand stilled. She opened her eyes, and saw his face harden. “I wasn’t going to let that happen to you,” he said. “I would _never_ let that happen to you.”

She gulped. He looked so serious in that moment, and there was something else in his eyes. “Well, I guess I didn’t waste a waxing,” she said brightly. “Since you’re down there. I never thought this would really happen, but considering it did, I’m just glad everything’s in decent shape.” Then she clamped both her mouth and her eyes shut. Had she really just said that? Did other women talk about their grooming when Oliver Queen was between their thighs? Was this the effect of the drug?

He gave her an intense look and knelt before her as he pulled the fabric past her ass and down her legs. His face was level with her - that area they were discussing - and she hoped to God everything she’d just said was actually true. Sometimes things went wrong, sometimes you still got a rash or pimples...

She felt his tongue lick into her before she could finish the thought. “Oh. Oh!” she said and wobbled on her heels but he disentangled his hand from her underwear and put it on her stomach, pushing her back on the level rough surface of the couch back as he licked and sucked and then pushed his tongue all the way inside. He was good at this. Of course, he was. He was good at everything.

He lifted her feet, still in their boots, over his shoulders and got comfortable, and she thought, “If all I had to do to make this happen is be drugged out of my head, okay then,” as she laid back and closed her eyes. Stars began to shoot behind her lids. Red, white, and _green_.

  


>>\--->

 

Oliver felt Felicity begin to break apart around his mouth. Her hips were jerking against his face, one leg was crooked up and pushing against the couch back, and the other was shaking against his neck. He was happy to get this going for her, but other things were going to have to go down soon. His cock felt like it was about to explode. He already had one hand down his pants just to ease things a tiny bit. Holding one of her smooth thighs in his hands and hearing her moans and grunts was driving him out of his mind. He thought about moving this to her bedroom, but he didn’t think he’d be able to prop himself up on his elbows and push into her slow and sweet without crossing a major boundary. The first time, the second time, any time tonight. If they had any hope of keeping things professional between them, this had to be fucking and nothing face to face.

Oliver didn’t have the same out Felicity was using to manage this situation because Felicity didn’t have a secret identity he could use to help compartmentalize this. What was he supposed to think of her as? His secretary? No. Even his pre-island self would have been repelled at the thought. Screwing your secretary was what middle-aged men did, after they lost the ability to pull. And she wasn’t just a secretary to him. She never had been.

He stood up and flipped her over so she faced away from him, bending her over the couch and pushing her legs apart with his knee. “Ready?” he said.

“Mmm, yes. Yeah.”

He unzipped his pants. His cock was at full attention, and it bobbed against his stomach. His fingers slipped up her labia and hit her clit, and she moaned and ground back against them. He pushed two fingers back inside her opening, curving them, searching for that spot. There it was, soft and spongy. She gasped and arched her back, opening wider for him.

His mind went fuzzy with lust. She was so unbelievably hot. And eager. She was whining as she rubbed against his hand. “Wait,” he said. “Just a sec.” There was something he wasn’t thinking about. The light from the single lamp was too loud. He could hear the sound it made; it was like a squeaky wheel, and he turned his face away from it. He tried to center himself again, but his mind had only one thing on it, and it wasn’t transcendental meditation. He breathed in through his nose. It was there, that thing, right there…what was it?

“Please, Oliver, hurry up,” she said and tried to wriggle around to face him, but he put his palm in the center of her back and pushed her back down. Felicity reached back and grabbed him in her hand and pulled him to her apex, rubbing and squeezing his cock, and the thought was gone. He was gone. He centered himself, pulled his fingers out, and pushed into her heat, inch by inch. She was very wet, but he was big, and he didn’t want to hurt her. He closed his eyes and breathed out his mouth. Slowly, slowly...sparks shot behind his eyelids. They sounded wind chimes in his head. Underneath him Felicity panted. When he was all the way in, he leaned forward, covering her skin with his like layers of lava melting into each other. He pulled her earlobe into his mouth and bit lightly on it. And then he began to move.

He needed to take her this way, from behind, and not just because the angle was better, although the angle was fantastic. He was able to go so deep. He slid in and out, harder and faster slamming his hips against the spread flesh of her ass. He knew he was hitting _something_ right because he immediately felt her begin to flutter around him, clasping him in small motions from inside. He pounded harder, and she cried out.

“Oliver, whatever you do, don’t stop,” she said, grappling at the nubbly fabric of her couch with one hand. “Just keep on...yeah...mmhmm, like that. _Ohhh_ , that’s so good. No stopping. Forget about that.”

Stop? He was never going to stop. He couldn’t stop; it would be physically impossible to separate himself from her. They were fusing together _right now_. If they ever stopped the worst would happen: she would know. In one glance she’d see what he wasn’t going to be able to hide from her anymore: how he felt about her.

She felt like hope in his arms. After Shado and Sara, after Slade had gone off the rails and Akio had died, after _Tommy_ , Oliver had learned to quash hope. “Fuck hope,” he’d thought nearly every time his subconscious wanted to believe that this time things might be better, this time they might work out. He’d get it right. He’d never thought about actually fucking hope, though. Or that hope would feel like a warm, gasping, brilliant, babbling woman about to come her head off all around him.

He laughed out loud. It was funny. Hope was a woman’s name. Here was a woman, and - he grunted as he shoved himself fully inside her - no wonder she was a virtue. She felt like the best fucking thing he’d ever done.

If he could only keep going like this - in, out - IN - OUT - IN - forever, he might survive her. He yanked Felicity’s hips harder to his and she gasped, “OhmygodyesOliver, ohyesohyesOHYESSSS.” He bit down on her shoulder as he reached around with one hand and touched her clit lightly - just brushed it, really. She broke apart yelling his name, and he stilled, hard as steel inside her. His other hand slid up her side and over her left breast. He could feel her heart going. It was fast, so fast, and then it skipped a beat, and he panicked.

“Felicity, you okay?” he said into her neck, “Tell me what’s going on. What do you need?”

Her shuddering breaths slowed, and she lifted her head and turned to look up at him. He began to pull out, but she reached behind and grabbed his ass as she grinned sloppily and said, “More of that.”


	3. Hidden Vulnerabilities

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The flip side of intimacy is vulnerability.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I thought I'd make a note of this story's origins. Back in December [I interviewed rosietwiggs](http://fiacresgirl.tumblr.com/post/136262859449/profiling-the-pen-rosietwiggs) on my blog. She mentioned the sex pollen trope as one of her favorites, actually her favorite. When her OFBB story, [The New Normal](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5652889/chapters/13019731) posted here on AO3, I enjoyed it quite a bit, so I went looking for more sex pollen Olicity stories. It appears there really aren't very many. So I started to think about how I could make this work in a fic of my own.
> 
> I think the magic of the sex pollen trope is making characters feel things they aren’t ready or prepared to feel and then making them deal with the consequences of those feelings (plus have lots of sex). It’s kind of a fast forward button for fandoms who have had to wait. So I wanted to explore that emotionally. In 2x05 or thereabouts, where I set this story, Oliver and Felicity are still very buttoned up and tentative with each other, careful. Laughing with someone requires vulnerability as well because the possibility exists that the other person might be laughing at you. 
> 
> Of course, these two wouldn’t mock each other, except in the most friendly ways, ever. And they would rather die than hurt each other. But did they know that in 2x05? That's what I'm exploring here.
> 
> I don't know if I addressed the consent issue adequately enough in Chapter 2, but it works for me as a reader and there are always other stories for readers who need different circumstances or conversations.

Felicity lay on her shoulder on the couch, her breathing coming out in shallow little puffs from between tensed lips. Oliver, on one knee, moved over and inside her, slowly but firmly, arms extended, holding his weight on his hands. She pushed back in time with the rhythm he was setting, clenching down as hard as she could, chasing the orgasm that was almost there...almost there…

 _Ohhhhh_ , she felt it come over her, first hesitantly and then insistently. She arched back against him, and he fucked her through it, pushing into her harder, and it went on and on and on until it felt like it might never stop and she would expire on this couch of sheer exploding relief, gripping his cock with every kegel muscle she had.

He groaned in her ear and went quiet.

She rode the pleasant aftershocks of her orgasm as she relaxed in increments against him, for the moment done. Every nerve ending in her body was holding up, but just barely. She’d witnessed how hard Oliver worked out and had seen him in action night after night, but watching him scale a building and scale her upper thigh with his teeth were two different things. Let alone letting him do what he’d just done to her.

The man had stamina. He didn’t even look tired. He did look sweaty, though - what she could see of him. Her cheek was pressed against the Arrow suit, and she could feel the zipper against her back. He’d pushed so hard against her that she probably had a long zigzag indentation running down her skin. She was grateful for the leather, though; it felt cool against her chafed face. She would have beard burn by morning, that was for sure. What would everyone think? What would Diggle say?

Diggle.

She froze, and Oliver, sensing her change of mood, froze as well. He lifted his head to look down at her.

“Something wrong?” he asked. His hips jerked slightly, and inside her his cock hit something sensitive. She closed her eyes. What was Diggle going to say about all of this? Well, not _this_. But, you know, this?

Felicity’s brain had come down from the crazy high of an hour ago. Everything no longer seemed absolutely hilarious, but she could still see the humor inherent in being so thoroughly vanquished by Starling City’s feared vigilante and then patted down for damage. She opened her eyes.

“I’m fine,” she said. And she was fiiiiine. Oh yes, she was. “More than fine.” She laughed again. “Good job. _Great_ job. I was just thinking about what Diggle’s going to say when he finds out about us.”

Oliver pulled out of her and rolled his body into the couch back. He sighed. “Yeah,” he said, and then he shook his head. “Have you got a glass of water? I’m thirsty.”

She laughed again. Well, he was right. There was no use crying over spilt milk, and she didn’t want to think about Dig’s disapproving face right now. It was like the least sexy thing she could imagine. She and Oliver weren’t children. They were adults who’d been sprayed with a weaponized sex chemical. You couldn’t possibly prepare for that kind of eventuality.

She slid off the couch carefully. The Scotchgard already had its work cut out for it. “In the kitchen,” she said. “Make yourself at home. I’m just gonna…” She gestured vaguely in the direction of the bathroom and wobble waddled off on her boots like the sex goddess she was. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught Oliver as he smiled and shook his head.

 

>>\--->

 

The bathroom was a welcome haven. Felicity sank down on the toilet and attempted to clear her thoughts and focus on something other than the prickling of her skin and the need between her legs. This was doable. It was. She’d just pull herself together, put on a -- she glanced around the small room -- towel, and salvage what dignity she had left with her boss. She was a strong, independent woman. With goals. She just needed to splash a little water on her face. She craned her neck to look in the mirror.

Oh my God.

The face that stared back at her looked like a hurricane survivor. Her hair, in its braids, had mostly survived, but mascara smeared all the way down both cheeks, and there was lipstick everywhere but her lips, even down her chin and neck. No. Felicity leaned closer. That was beard burn. There was beard burn absolutely everywhere. With effort, she kept herself from looking down too. She arched her shoulders in memory.

Oliver’s stubble against her skin had felt amazing, but her face now looked like it had been debrided. “Um, I’ll just be a minute,” she called out to Oliver as she grabbed a face cloth from a drawer and turned the water on. She ran it under the water and scrubbed her cheeks and lips. Some of the black and red there went down the drain. She pulled the ponytail holders out of her braids and brushed her hair out, and then she hopped up on the counter and gave herself a quick ho bath - which wasn’t at all humiliating. She sniffed her shoulder. It smelled like Oliver. She smelled like Oliver. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath.

She smelled like she’d had just had hours of orgasms with a sex god. Someone should bottle this and sell it because it was muskier than any scent any of the guys she’d ever dated had worn. If they’d worn this, they’d have had a better chance. Or, more honestly, she’d have stood no chance at all.

The bathroom door cracked open. “Are you okay in there?” Oliver asked. Her hand froze under her armpit as her eyes flew open. She propped a boot heel against the bathroom door and pushed back.

“Doing just fine,” she said in the most chipper voice she could manage. It came out sounding about two octaves lower than her usual one, probably due to all of the groaning she’d been doing only a little while ago.

The blue eye she could see through the door crack had lines that were deepening around the corners, damn him.

“Can I come in?” he asked. She nodded, and he opened the door wider. He looked exactly like he always did. Fantastic. Like he’d taken a light jog after a petty criminal. A jaywalker, perhaps. He was a little sweaty, that was all. He’d partially unzipped his Arrow jacket, and she could see the firm ridges of his abs as they disappeared into his now unbuttoned pants.

“I need to get out of this,” Oliver said. “My skin feels itchy, and it’s too hot in here.” He leaned one arm against the sink counter and lowered his head to kiss her.

It was a light brush, but the drug in her system kicked back into full gear at his touch, and she opened her mouth and groaned. He smiled into her lips. “Hey, beautiful,” he said.

It was such a Playboy Oliver thing to say that she stiffened, but when he pulled away from her, his eyes were so soft and his smile was so genuine that her fratboy BS detector registered nothing. Then he sobered.

“I know you like the suit,” he said. “But it’s got to come off. You’re stuck with just Oliver, I’m afraid.”

She stared into his eyes, and through the dual haze of the lust and her embarrassment, she could still see pain. She’d _hurt_ him with that remark. How could that be possible? Oliver had to have had dozens, hundreds even, of these encounters with women, women who just used him for his body like he used them. Yet here he was giving her this kicked puppy look.

She put her hands on the zipper and slid it down. “Let’s get you out of this,” she said. “The pants too. Do you need a shower?”

He shook his head as he shrugged out of his jacket. “I had one before we went out tonight.”

She turned on the warm water again and wet down the washcloth. “Maybe just a little ho bath, then. I already had mine.” She carefully patted him down. His penis was semi-erect, and this act felt, in a strange way, more intimate than anything they’d done in the previous two hours. He put his hand over hers on the cloth.

“Thanks,” he said, tossing it into the sink. He leaned on both hands and kissed her again. “My head’s a little clearer. How about yours?”

She wound her leg around his waist. “Yeah,” she said. “But I still need this. Want to take it to a more ergonomic location like my bedroom?”

“Mmhmm,” he said and cupped her from behind, lifting her and carrying out the door. “That sounds good.”

 

>>\--->

 

Oliver knelt on the floor by the bed and helped Felicity unzip her boots, and then he tugged his pants down and yanked them off. He didn’t know how he was doing. The high he’d experienced from the drug was evaporating, but he still felt a prickly sensation inside of his skin along with a powerful lust for Felicity. He had this urge to be inside her that would not subside, like he had to be touching her or his hands might drop off.

That had to be the drug, right? It had been awhile since he’d had sex, but the intensity of this experience - how he felt unfocused when he wasn’t making skin-to-skin contact with Felicity? It wasn’t how these things usually went. He’d already come three times. That he had an erection at all now was surprising. Yeah, he had high T-levels, but he wasn’t a teenager anymore.

He pushed Felicity back on the bed and pulled her arms up along her sides and over her head, and then he kissed her softly, almost chastely on her mouth. She was so pretty. Her lips were unbelievably soft and full, and he pulled the lower one in his mouth and sucked on it. He’d take it easy on her this time. She had to be tired.

Felicity wriggled underneath him and wrapped her legs around his waist. She pulled her lip out of his mouth and nipped at his. Maybe not that tired then.

“Let me up for a minute,” she said, and, when he rolled to the side, she reached into her night-table drawer and pulled out a jar of something. She unscrewed it and dug her fingers inside. “Coconut oil. This will make everything better, and soften your skin too.” She held her hand closed for a moment, and then she reached out and started smoothing it on his lower abdomen. He jerked, but she splayed her fingers and pushed him down on the bed. His hair just touched the headboard.

“Shh,” she said. “Your body has already gone through a lot, and you probably never moisturize.” She began rubbing the oil over his Bratva tattoo, and the sweet aroma of the oil got stronger as her hand ran up his chest.

“I know I’m a mess,” Oliver said. “Mangled.”

“Mangled never looked this good,” she said. “You do scars with style, Oliver.”

“There probably isn’t an inch of my chest or back that isn’t wrecked.” He knew what he looked like. The frame was fine, but the leather on this suitcase needed replacing.

She cocked her head at him. “It certainly adds to your mystery, but if I had to guess, I’d say these are badges you’ve got.” She dug her hands again in the jar.

“Badges?”

“Did you get any of these from being careless, or are they all hero marks?” She smoothed the oil over the scar he’d gotten the night he’d told her who he was. “Like this one?” She leaned down and kissed it.

“The bullet my mother gave me? Yeah, all heroes get those.”

She lifted her head and smiled at him. “The Queens are not the average family, and your mother is unique.” She traced her fingers over the slash he had across his pec. “And this?”

He had a vision of a tent and a knife flashing. “Fyers tortured me.”

“What wouldn’t you tell him?”

How did she know that? He turned his head on the pillow.

“Come on, Oliver. What wouldn’t you tell him?” She traced the long jagged line with her tongue.

“About Yao Fei,” he said after a minute. “Not that it mattered in the end.”

“Did it matter in the middle?” she asked, slipping one leg over him and getting comfortable on his pelvis.

“In the middle?” It was hard to think when she squirmed that way.

“Did Yao Fei know that you helped him? Is that how you started to be friends?”

“We weren’t friends. He was...my mentor. He kept me alive and taught me to fend for myself.”

“After Fyers tortured you?”

“Yes,” Oliver said.

“You were friends, Oliver,” Felicity said. “He saved your life, and you still wear his hood.” She traced the rough patch on his right pec with her finger pads, and then moved on to his arm. “And this one?”

“That was Deadshot,” he said.

“Oh, yes, Deadshot,” she said. “That’s how we met. You brought me a his laptop.” She lowered her voice and a dimple appeared in her cheek, “‘I spilled a latte on it.’”

Oliver leaned his head back on the pillow. “That wasn’t my best lie,” he admitted.

“All of your lies were bad,” she said with a laugh. “Although my favorite was the energy drink. An energy drink. Really? You thought I’d believe that?”

“That was my favorite too,” he said, remembering what she’d said and how cute her face had been. “It was the moment I knew you’d noticed me.”

She blew out her breath. “I noticed you. Of course I noticed you. You’re Oliver Queen, and I worked for Queen Consolidated. How I could I not notice you?”

“I mean,” he said, reaching down to maneuvered her hips so she was straddling his cock just perfectly. Yeah, there. Right _there_. “You thought I was hot.”

“I didn’t,” she said.

He raised an eyebrow at her.

“Okay,” she said, “Maybe I did. Maybe I do, but you shouldn’t get cocky.”

He flexed his cock against her, and she groaned and twisted against him. “You know what I mean.”

He smiled and scooched up to rest the back of his head against the headboard. “You think I’m hot. It’s not just the Arrow. How hot?”

The soft, luminous skin across her cheeks and nose flooded with color. “Moving on,” she said, smoothing coconut oil across the tattoo with the Chinese characters. “How did you get this?”

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” he said.

“Did it involve helping anyone, or did you just pick out Chinese characters to be _deep_?”

“I didn’t pick it out, and I guess you could say I did get it because I helped someone.”

She grinned smugly. “Another badge then. Bravery or kindness?”

“Stupidity,” he said. “All of these came in some way from some stupid thing I did.” He gasped as she trailed her hand across his lower abdomen. If she greased him up any more, he was going to slide off the sheets.

“Even this one?” She eased her body down his legs so that she could look more carefully at the bite mark on his hip. “It looks like an animal tried to eat you.” Her fingers traced the teeth marks.

“Shark,” he said.

“And he just let you go after he took a bite?”

“He must have thought I tasted bad,” Oliver said. “Spoiled.”

She put her mouth on his side and licked him. “You don’t,” she said. Her tongue moved slowly across the skin there. “You taste delicious. Hot and salty.” Her teeth scraped against him, and then she bit down. She scooped out more oil from the jar, dropped it off the bed, and reached for him. “I want to taste it all,” she said, dropping her head lower.

 

>>\--->

 

Oliver’s skull knocked against the headboard rhythmically as Felicity’s mouth pulled and sucked on him. He kept his eyes tightly closed, breathing in through his nose and out through his mouth. Her small hand was clenched around the base of his cock, massaging up and down. The other tugged his sack lightly, and that, along with the liquid noises she was making, would normally have been more than enough to make him come. She was humming something quietly and off key, and it sounded like a fucking symphony, it was so beautiful.

It was so much. It was almost too much. Oliver loved oral sex as much as the next guy, but there was something about this situation with Felicity and her enthusiasm - maybe it was the way she took a little break and pressed a kiss against the inside of his thigh with her heart shaped mouth - it was too intimate. He knew she was watching him and his responses, judging what to do next or how much pressure pleased him. He was used to her watching him in the office, in the lair. He knew very little got by her. This current combination of heat and motion, the sucking and humming, with her big blue eyes looking up at his face, though. He couldn’t--

He couldn’t.

He sat up and pulled at her shoulders. She looked up in surprise. “Did I do something--”

“I need to be inside you,” he said. “Come here.” He grabbed her by her waist and pulled her up his body, glancing at the side of the bed where the coconut oil had dropped. “Do you need anything?” he asked.

“After watching you just now?” she asked with a laugh. “No, I think I can get by.” She leaned over his body with her arms, kissing him once, lightly. “Okay, here I go.”

She eased down on his cock slowly and he closed his eyes. Feeling her around him this way was like coming home, but to a real home and not an empty mansion. She began to bounce on top of him, all heat and friction, and he felt that familiar coil begin inside him. He put his hands on her waist and caressed his way down her to her hips. She ground against him and he sucked in his breath.

“Felicity, you should know…” he said, forcing the words out through gritted teeth. “If this doesn’t happen, it’s not because you’re not amazing. It’s just that I don’t know if I can again. It’s been a wild night, and--”

She put her finger to his lips, and then she laid down on his chest and kissed him fully. Before he knew what was happening, she was writhing and groaning into his mouth.

“We should have done this sooner,” she said, pushing herself down again. “You feel so fantastic.” She shivered on top of him as she bounced again. She was humming that off-key song again, and she looked like a goddess on top of him, light practically shining from her as she began breaking apart. Then she stopped and looked down at him.

“Come with me,” she said, her voice cracking.

He shook his head, but his body disagreed, and all of a sudden he realized that this position -- entwined, eyes locked, in the throes of the strongest lust he’d ever felt -- was exactly what he’d told himself he would avoid at any cost tonight.

She was still talking as she began to move again, switching up the rhythm and adding a little grind. “Oliver, please. Come for me. I want you to. I want you to have something good. Something that’s just good. Of all the people I know, you have suffered the most, and you have such a kind heart.”

As she spoke, he watched a tear pool in the corner of her eye and then drop down to her cheek and then her breast. He shook his head.

“Felicity, I...I--”

But before any unforgivable words could escape, he felt the vibrations begin in his core, like a gunshot of pleasure, and ripple through him. He groaned and closed his eyes and gave in.

It was too late anyway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> By the way, I highly recommend organic coconut oil for many things. It's an excellent product.


	4. The Reset Button

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The morning after dawns, and Oliver and Felicity have an awkward conversation about all the sex they just had and related subjects.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This conversation was a little trickier to write than I imagined. I tried to keep everything in character while navigating a number of awkward issues with humor. These two are in a heap of trouble, that's for sure.
> 
> I dedicate this chapter to @almondblossom. I know it’s not as sexy, but I hope it’s still in character. ;)

Felicity woke with her mouth wide open on some guy’s broad chest. Before she snapped her eyes closed, she had a second to take in the ink at eye level. Apparently last night had been wild.

She squinted in concentration as she took in her surroundings through her other senses. She reached behind her, grabbed the blanket that was draped across her knees, and pulled it up over her back. The wool felt scratchy across her back, but at least she wasn’t completely exposed now. She recognized her own bed; this was her blanket, and she could smell the lavender scented laundry soap she used on her sheets.

And sex. She could smell that too. Lots of that.

Her fingers lightly patted down the man’s torso. It was very muscular, and there were a number of ridges and indentations. She stopped when she got to his hip. The ridges there formed a pattern she recognized, and she almost groaned aloud. Oliver. She was in bed with Oliver. How _in the hell_ had that happened?

Her mind raced as she went over everything she could remember from last night. Her last clear recollection was of standing in front of the sports bar St. Elmo’s, trying to flush out the rapist. She had been cold, she’d seen someone crossing the street, and then...nothing. Well, not nothing, but just vague glimpses, like riding on the back of a motorcycle or tracing her tongue down ridge after ridge of clenched abdominal muscle.

Or the soft brush of bristly hair hitting her jawline as she arched her neck back and dragged herself up and then down again on his thick…

Okay, maybe she remembered a little bit of what happened. _If_ it really happened and hadn’t been a dream - an hours-long, rated-X sex dream.

That couldn’t have really happened, right? She opened her eyes and then pulled her lips closed so she was no longer licking his pec like it was a creamsicle. How had she gotten in this situation? She could only think of one way:  she must have been sprayed with the chemical the rapist was using on his victims.

Just as she thought that, Oliver’s eyes opened and met hers. His head was propped slightly against the headboard, so she could see the impressions as they formed in those bright blue pools. Surprise, confusion, and desire?

“Felicity?”

She licked her lips. “What? I mean, um, yeah. It’s me.” She felt something hard nudge her upper thigh, and she rolled sideways off his body, grabbing the nubby blanket as she slid.

“What happened?” He blinked his eyes and began to sit up, and, yeah, there is was: an impressive morning erection. Wow. She pressed her thighs together, and pulled the blanket tighter around herself.

“You tell me,” she said, her voice hoarse. “I can remember us being at St. Elmo’s last night. Everything after that is fuzzy. I think I got sprayed with that sex chemical, and then maybe you took me back here?” _And we had sex, obvs._

He frowned. “I remember chasing that red bearded guy across the road, and after that it’s less clear. Where’s Diggle?”

She looked over to her night table for her phone, but it wasn’t there. Okay. She tried not to panic. She was in her own apartment, which meant she’d gotten home safely, even if both of them had been sprayed. Her phone was probably somewhere here too and her keys.

“He’s not here, although I don’t know why we are. I mean, it’s my apartment so it makes sense why I’m here, but why--”

“Am I here?” he asked. She nodded. He hauled himself up to a sitting position and looked around. She noticed he had a red mark on his shoulder that looked like a bite pattern. And another on his bicep. That one had drawn blood. She wanted to tear her eyes away from those marks, but somehow she couldn’t. Sometime last night she had bitten him. Twice. At least twice.

Oliver reached down and grabbed something. “My Arrow pants are here,” he said then turned his back to her and pulled them on. The muscles of his back and ass were fully illuminated by the cold winter sun coming through the window. What was the saying? _I hate to see you go, but I love to watch you leave?_

Why was she _thinking_ this way? She had just slept with her boss. Her day _and_ night boss. This was a _code-red emergency_. At the very least she should check for early signs of syphilis. What were they? The only ones she could remember were blindness and sex organ rot. She looked over to the other night table. Where was her phone?

She stood, keeping the wool blanket wrapped like a toga around her. “I’m going to check to see where, uh, where my clothes are,” she said and walked through the bedroom door and down the hall to the living room. Things here were a little chaotic. A lamp was knocked off the side table and lay broken on the floor. Its lampshade was across the room. The couch pillows were half off and half on, and the side table table was tipped over. The shag rug that normally lay by the front door was almost in the kitchen, and Felicity’s shirt, skirt, and underwear were scattered by the entrance door. She reached down and picked up the skirt. It was heavy. Thank God her phone was still inside the pocket.

Felicity turned it on, saw about twenty messages from Diggle. Glancing through them she inferred that he had not caught their rapist last night and that he was worried about them. She turned it off. Dig was just going to have to wait. She was going to have to sort some of this stuff with Oliver out first. She was worried about them too.

She looked up from her phone and saw Oliver casing the joint. “It looks like we were, um, busy last night,” she said. He nodded distractedly.  

“How many times do you thin--”

“Three,” Oliver said, picking up the remains of the lamp off the floor. “Definitely three out here.”

Felicity looked around again. “How do you figure?”

He walked over to the shag rug and flipped it over, and, yeah, that was going to have to be wet vacced. “Carpet,” he said, then pointed. “Couch and,” he walked over to the wall by the kitchen, “here too. There’s cracking at hip level.”

“Cracking?” Felicity’s voice rose. “We cracked the wall?”

“It can be fixed,” Oliver said. “A little spackle and some paint. It’ll be fine.”

She had cracked a wall with her sexcapades with Oliver, and she couldn’t even remember kissing him. How was this happening?

“Do you have a vacuum?” Oliver asked.

“Hmmm?”

“A vacuum? I can get started cleaning this up.”

“Yeah,” she said. “It’s in the kitchen closet.” Suddenly this was too much for her to handle.

“Look, I think I’m going to take a shower. I need a minute to myself, okay?”

He just nodded and walked toward the kitchen. She pulled the blanket up a few inches off the floor so she wouldn’t trip on it and fled.

 

>>\--->

 

Oliver heard the bathroom door shut as he opened the closet door. He scanned Felicity’s cleaning supplies. She had a wet/dry vac. That was good. He grabbed a spray bottle and some OxiClean and went to the sink. He filled the bottle up, poured some of the powder into it, screwed the spray cap back on, and shook it. If only he could clean up the relationship mess they’d made as easily as he could the shag rug.

As he scrubbed at the stain on the couch he wondered if Felicity was on the pill because they sure as hell hadn’t used a condom last night. What a clusterfuck. He’d now slept with a woman who was his employee - and not even technically. Felicity was directly underneath him. Were they going to have to disclose that to human resources? Ms. Hoye was the head of H.R., and a more unpleasant woman he’d never met. He did not relish telling her the news. She would never believe a sprayed-with-sex-chemicals story, and no doubt it would be all over QC ten minutes later. And Diggle? He and Felicity were going to have to nail all of this down before they left her apartment, that was for sure. What a fun conversation that was going to be.

He dragged the rug into the kitchen where there was tile instead of hardwood, and poured soapy water over the mess. The wet vac was loud as it slurped up the moisture, so he didn’t hear Felicity come back into the kitchen until she was standing right in front of him. She’d washed her hair, and it was in wet curls down her back. She was wearing the least sexy outfit he’d ever seen on her: a purple flannel one piece that zipped all the way from her throat to her navel. Her face was bare of makeup. She was adorable.

He turned the vac off, and raised an eyebrow at her. She blushed.

“We need to talk,” she said.

“This is a nice vacuum,” he said, wrapping the cord back around it.

“Thanks,” she said. “My mom gave it to me when I moved out here from Boston. She said it was a good gift for a fresh start. How do you know how to operate it?”

She was so smart that she made all of them seem dense in comparison, but she had to know he wasn’t stupid. “Felicity, my college transcripts may not be impressive, but it’s a vacuum.”

“It’s a _complicated_ vacuum. I’ve never even used the wet function before.”

“You add soap and water,” he said. “And then you turn it on.”

“Still,” she said, “you’re a billionaire. I wouldn’t think you’d have to vacuum much.”

He sighed. “When I was in high school, and my parents were away one weekend, I threw a really wild party on the Gambit. My friends and I trashed it, and when my parents came back, they were not happy. My mom told me it was my responsibility to clean up everything by myself, and until I got everything back in order I was grounded. I got familiar with the functions of a wet vac.”

Felicity’s eyebrows raised. “Wow,” she said. “Good for Moira. That sounds like really solid parenting. I’m impressed.”

He remembered how the story finished and smiled. “It would have been, but after I’d worked for a few hours, my dad hired a cleaning crew to take over. He told me that a young man’s got to let loose once in awhile.”

Felicity rolled her eyes. “Okay.”

“Yeah. This was during one of their rougher patches. Things were pretty tense between my parents for long stretches when I was in high school, and sometimes they’d compete with each other to see who I loved more. This was one of those times.”

She wrinkled her nose. “That’s awful. I’m sure you remained scrupulously fair and impartial.”

“I was seventeen,” Oliver said. “I didn’t really want to clean out bathtubs full of vomit.”

“Bath _tubs_?”

He laughed, remembering. “As parties go, this was one pretty unforgettable. Ask Tommy...” He trailed off as the familiar grief washed over him. No one would ever be able to ask Tommy about that party - or any of their parties - again. And he had _loved_ telling that story, especially the part about the boa constrictor.

“Anyway, this rug is good to go now. Probably cleaner than it’s ever been,” he said.

Felicity put a hand on his shoulder. “Let’s talk,” she said and led him over to the other couch. The red one with no arms, the partial back, and the spindly looking legs. He sat on it judiciously; it was as uncomfortable as it looked. He laid his arm awkwardly across its back and turned his attention to her. She had that look on her face, like she had a speech prepared.

“I don’t have any STDs,” he said.

She opened her mouth and then closed it. “How do you know?”

“Remember that whole ‘We don’t know where he’s been’ conversation you had with Dig when I got back from Lian Yu? The doctor tested me for everything and then put me on broad-spectrum antibiotics anyway. At your insistence. I’m clean.”

Felicity looked unconvinced. “You haven’t slept with anyone since then?”

“Just you,” he said.

“No one else?”

“Felicity, I spend every evening with you and Dig chasing criminals around the city. I’m not exactly carousing these days.”

“There were a bunch of women last year.”

He thought back. “Three,” he said. “But none this year.” Then, because he didn’t love this line of questioning, he turned it around. “What about you?”

“What about me?” she asked.

“How many guys have there been for you?”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “Since when?”

“Since whenever. Since I’ve known you. Since the beginning.”

She compressed her lips. “That’s not really any of your business,” she said.

“It is now,” he said, injecting a note of righteousness into his voice. “Considering I just slept with you and, you know, all the other people you’ve slept with, as the pamphlets say.”

She didn’t appreciate the joke. “QC ran a comprehensive exam on me when you ‘promoted’ me to be your executive assistant,” she said. “You have nothing to worry about.”

“And there hasn’t been anyone since that time?” He wasn’t judging, they were both adults, but he was tired of being the one in the hot seat. How had her little speech gone when she’d finally agreed to work for him? Oh, yeah: “Under no circumstances will I be your bimbo scheduler. I’m not doing clean up either. Ever.” Like Laurel was a bimbo. Or McKenna or Helena.

Helena had other problems, but she wasn’t a bimbo.

“So neither of us has to worry about diseases,” Felicity said finally. “Good.”

He decided to ask the question that was nagging him. “Are you on the pill?”

“No.”

“No?”

“I’m not in a relationship, Oliver, so I’m not on long-term birth control. Are you?”

“It’s not really an option for men,” he said.

“I’m assuming you’re not…” she trailed off and made a weird slashing movement with her hand.

“I’m not…”

“You haven’t had a vasectomy.” There was that motion again. He recognized now that it was supposed to be scissors, and he repressed a shudder.

“Definitely not,” he said.

She stood up, grabbed her phone from the table, and brought up her calendar to show him. “Given the rotten luck we’ve had so far, this is good news: it’s a pretty safe time of the month for me.”

“There’s a safe time of the month?”

Her pretty lips thinned. “Relatively speaking. Look, we can’t go back, but I’d guess this won’t be a problem in that way. Really.”

He let out a breath. “Good,” he said. “That’s good. I don’t want to deal with another pregnancy scare.”

“Another pregnancy scare?” She tilted her head at him and narrowed her eyes. “How many pregnancy scares have there been exactly?”

Well, he’d bungled that. “Two or three,” he said, mentally subtracting the confirmed pregnancy scare and miscarriage. “Not that many, considering…” Okay, he was going to close his mouth now and not say anything more. She could take this conversation over, and he’d just nod.

“Considering...considering what?” she asked. “Considering how many women you’ve slept with?” She wrinkled her nose at him. “Oliver.”

“Okay,” he said. “I get it. I haven’t always been celibate, but it’s been awhile since there was a pregnancy scare. Years. And since the island I’ve always used a condom when it was possible, so you don’t have to worry.”

She rolled her eyes toward the ceiling and mumbled, “When it was _possible_? What does that even mean?”

“It means I’ve been in a lot of places, and condoms were scarce in some of them.”

“But having sex was _imperative_?” Her voice was high and raised now.

“I get it! You disapprove! But I would have used a condom last night if I’d not been sprayed with a sex chemical. Hell, I wouldn’t even have slept with you if I hadn’t been sprayed with a sex chemical, okay?”

She stood up and pointed a finger at him. “And what’s wrong with me?” she yelled.

He shut his mouth - why wouldn’t it stay shut? - and took her in. Her face was pink and there was tension throughout her entire body. The purple flannel was pulled taut away from her body, making sort of a tent between her arm and her stomach. Was she _offended_? Did she really want to know?

“Are you asking me why I haven’t slept with you yet?” he said quietly.

She closed her mouth suddenly, and lowered her pointing hand. “No,” she said. “Of course not.”

“Felicity,” he said, “It’s not that you’re not gorgeous--”

“Stop,” she said. “Just stop.”

“You know I respect you.” The words spilled out. “I rely on you. I _admire_ you. But because of the life I lead, I just think it’s better to not be with someone I could really care about.”  

Her face flooded with color. “Don’t say anything else,” she said quickly. “I agree 100%. It’s not like you’re really boyfriend material anyway.”

Ouch. He’d been a decent boyfriend to McKenna. He’d tried anyway. “I’d do okay,” he said.

Felicity blew out her breath. “Please. My mother isn’t a member of MENSA, but she hammered one important lesson home to me, and that is: no matter, how pretty you are, how kind you are, how loving you are, or how well you cook, if a man doesn’t want to stay faithful, he won’t.” She made a motion at herself with one hand. “There’s nothing magical about me that would make you want to be a one-woman man. I’m pretty average.”

The words were quiet, off-hand even, but her eyes were blazing. This was a challenge, and he was going to fail it. He knew it.

“You’re not average,” he said at last. “Not at all. But we should talk about what we’re going to tell Diggle and everyone else.”

She stared at him for a few seconds more, then sat again on the couch, leaving about a foot of space between them. “We’ll tell Diggle,” she said, “because we have to, but we’re not telling anyone else.”

“Not HR?”

“Definitely not them. There’s nothing I could say to Ms. Hoye that would make this okay. Besides, she already thinks we’re sleeping together.”

“She does?” Maybe that’s why she looked at him like he was milk that had gone bad.

“Everyone does, Oliver. Don’t be dense. Why else would you promote a blonde IT girl to work directly underneath you?”

He frowned. He supposed that made sense, but no one had ever given him any grief over it or made any innuendos. From the look on her face, she couldn’t say the same. Shit. “Because you’re one of only two people I trust fully?” he said finally.

She gave a gentle, wistful smile, then said, “Then trust me now. This,” she waved a hand between them, “stays a secret. We go back to the way we were before. We hit the reset button. It shouldn’t be that hard, right? It’s not like we can remember what happened?” A look passed over her face. It was one he easily recognized: she was lying. Her face reddened when he didn’t say anything, and he had a fleeting memory of that same color climbing her neck slowly as he buried his face between her shoulder blades and pushed into her from behind.

She made an almost feral sound when she came, he remembered that now. A low groan. He never would have guessed she was such a warrior in the sack. “Right,” he said, touching the bite mark on his shoulder. He kept his face straight. Because, unlike her, he had a lot of practice lying.

“Okay, then.” she said. “We should put this out of our heads and focus on being the best Team Arrow we can be. We’ll figure out how to break this to Diggle. He has to understand. It’s not like we could help ourselves. So one more awkward conversation, and we can get back on track. Start over.” She held out her hand to him in a businesslike way.

“Right,” he said again and shook it. It was comforting to know, in a way, that even very, very smart people weren’t immune to self-delusion.


	5. Intended Consequences

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Diggle weighs in about the previous night's events.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is for BlueMorgana who gave me such good feedback and a wonderful discussion on the last chapter. Thank you!

When Diggle finally heard the door at the top of the stairs open, he didn’t know whether to relax or tense up. Felicity had called an hour ago to let him know that she and Oliver were “okay” - which Dig took to mean that everything he worried had happened between them last night actually had.

Three minutes after he’d pulled the Arrow van away from the curb and attempted to follow that asshole with the spray can, he’d realized he’d made the wrong call. Part of that was because the guy had run underneath the underpass next to St. Elmo’s and not down a road he could drive. Diggle parked and ran after him, but by the time he’d hauled ass through the road construction and between the concrete pillars holding up I-195, the guy was long gone. St. Elmo’s was not a new location for him. He probably had a well planned getaway route. This was obviously not a dude who left a lot up to chance.

Back in the parking lot Dig traced his boot through the tracks Oliver’s Ducati had left in the thin layer of crusted snow. They trailed their way out of the parking lot and then went left. Chances were good Oliver had taken them both to Felicity’s townhouse, but it was probably too late to intervene. What was he going to do anyway? Pound on Felicity’s door and yell, “I know what you’re doing in there! Stop having sex right now!” If her bra was off by now, it was too late. And her bra was definitely off.

You didn’t have to be a super genius to know that.

The trouble with these two is that they didn’t realize how close they teetered on the edge of making that bad call _all the time_. Their meaningful looks, all the times Felicity had stabbed Oliver in the chest to make a point, the many soft glances Oliver shot her way when she was busy clicking away at her keyboard - their relationship was already not platonic. It might not be romantic, but it was definitely not platonic.

Dig worried about them sometimes, and he worried about himself too. He’d seen enough close-quarters, in-the-heat-of-the-moment affairs crop up during his time in the military to know that, under the wrong circumstances, love could turn deadly. Marriages ended, the IG got called, leave ended with police visits and restraining orders, and soldiers got sloppy in the field and lost a limb or died.

Love was a distraction, and his team couldn’t afford to get sloppy. They were out there every night busting up drug deals and and chasing down crazy psychopaths. He needed Oliver to keep his head in the game, and he needed Felicity not to route his Ducati off a bridge because she was pissed about some dumb thing Oliver had done. They were better off being whatever they were now, and not lovers.

If he was right - and Dig knew he was right - it was too late for that. He went over to the salmon ladder, grabbed the metal bar, and started working his way up the rungs. It felt good to grasp something solid. He might as well work off some of his nervous energy. Waiting for confirmation of his fears was taking too damn long, and what he’d learned digging through the police files on the YouWAN2 rapes did not make him feel any better.

The bar in his hands went clang, clang, and then cla-clang as he hit the last rung off balance. He dropped his body weight and hung there, his arms bearing his weight. This was his fault. The sex chemical hadn’t been his idea, but he’d backed Felicity against Oliver’s objections, and - even worse - he’d left them behind when they’d needed him to be responsible for them. Yes, they were adults, and he hadn’t been afraid they’d die, but you didn’t leave a couple of toddlers alone in a glass factory and not expect blood and panic.

God damn it. Usually he could rely on Felicity’s good judgment, but not in this case. She’d been sprayed first, and it had been dark and at a distance, but he’d seen the way she’d slid her hand across Oliver’s shoulder after he’d been sprayed. That had been a “Hey, baby” touch if he’d ever seen one. This stuff acted fast, and he’d made the wrong call.

The upstairs door wrenched open, and Dig heard Oliver’s heavy footsteps come down the stairs. Dig dropped to the ground and walked back over to Felicity’s workstation. A few seconds later he heard Felicity’s softer tread. Usually her heels made these staccato noises as she tip-tapped her way down the metal steps, but today the sound was a soft thud-thudding instead. Her lavender Keds came into view. The rest of her, clad in a gray tracksuit, then appeared. Oliver had a too-small M.I.T. sweatshirt on over his Arrow pants. He pulled that off as he cleared the last couple of steps, then went over and found a green hoodie in their spare clothing stash. He handed the shirt back to Felicity as he walked over to where Dig was standing.

“Thanks,” she said distractedly. She folded it up and put it back in the clothing box. “May as well keep this here. Sometimes I get cold.” She closed the lid of the box and stood leaning against it.

No one spoke.

Dig took them both in. They looked exhausted. Their eyes were tired and red lined. Felicity’s hair was still wet, she was wearing no makeup, and both Oliver and Felicity were apparently finding the concrete floor of the lair very interesting all of a sudden. Dig didn’t think this were the right time to whip out his Mama’s “Do you know how worried I was?” speech, although both of them clearly expected a good tongue lashing.

“So,” he finally said. “What’s new?”

Felicity’s shoulders slumped. “I think you have an idea,” she said. “YouWAN2 sprayed both of us - you saw that. Oliver drove us back to my apartment, and...stuff happened.”

“How much do you remember?” Diggle asked.

“Some--” Oliver said.

“Practically nothing,” Felicity said, glaring at Oliver. Oliver raised an eyebrow at her but didn’t otherwise respond.

“The police reports state that none of the girls could identify their attackers,” Diggle said. “But I’ve spent all night going through the records Felicity copied, and I have a few questions about that.”

“Like what?” Felicity asked.

“From what you do remember, did you notice any emotional changes occurring over time? Like did the drug give you a high or a low? Did you hallucinate? Other than the, uh, sexual component, do you remember how it made you feel?”

“I didn’t hallucinate,” Oliver said. “It wasn’t like doing mushrooms or dropping acid. It didn’t freak me out. I do remember feeling really warm. I think we were sweating a lot. ”

Felicity kept her eyes on the floor. “There was an initial euphoria, I think,” she said finally. “I remember everything seemed hilarious at first. Maybe later I came down? I think I remember crying, but maybe it was a dream? Why would that matter?”

Dig went over to Felicity’s computer and opened up a window. “We knew that this guy tried to blackmail Kayla Whitestone, and she called his bluff and then killed herself, but what about the other women? Were they paying him to keep their information secret?” He brought up several files and clicked between them. “From the police timeline, it looks like Kayla was the most recent victim. I wondered if his pattern was to blackmail them all up front, so I went through the statements. It looks like a number of these girls’ parents wanted to press charges, but the girls wouldn’t do it.”

“They didn’t want to get this guy?” Oliver asked.

“No. Many of them said they had a relationship with him. A couple of them even referred to him as their boyfriend. I think that the drug was intended to be a behavioral modifier and a longer acting aphrodisiac.”

Oliver frowned, but Felicity looked uneasy. “Longer acting?” she asked.

“A behavioral modifier?” Oliver asked. “What kind of behavior was he trying to modify?”

“Do you know about Pavlov’s dog?” Dig asked. He’d gotten some training in psychology in the military, enough to recognize classical conditioning, and the internet was full of information. “Pavlov was a Russian scientist who was doing research on the physiology of digestion in dogs. He was monitoring how dogs drooled in the presence of food because the drool, as a bodily fluid, could be measured and studied. He noticed over time that the dogs he worked with started to drool when they saw the white coats of the people who fed them, and he wondered what kind of physical response could be generated by something totally unrelated.

“He found that he could make the dogs drool to the sound of a metronome if the sound was followed by the appearance of food soon afterwards and this pattern was repeated over time.”

“So what does that have to do with this?” Oliver asked.

“I think he’s using the drug to put them into a state where they are more easily conditioned,” Dig said. “I think he wants more than just sex in the moment.”

“So he’s training them while he’s got them under the influence of the drug?” Felicity asked. “How would he do that?”

“God knows,” Dig said. He understood wanting to get laid, but this was just sick. “When I wasn’t looking up this Pavlov’s stuff, I went over some of YouWAN2’s old posts on reddit. Are you familiar with the term _PUA_?”

Oliver looked blank, but Felicity scowled. “Unfortunately,” she said. “It’s short for pick-up artist. Guys who are looking to figure out the right psychological cues so they can get laid whenever without the hassle of getting to know women at all.”

“Some of those guys are probably just lonely and socially awkward, looking to figure out how to meet girls,” Dig said.

“And some of them like to fantasize about the day when sex robots become a thing, women are made obsolete, and they will regret forever that they didn’t have sex with these guys now,” Felicity said.

“How do you _know_ this?” Oliver asked.

“I was a woman in STEM?” Felicity said. “Unlike many colleges in America, M.I.T.’s ratio of men to women is still skewed.”

“The YouWAN2 username has been active in numerous forums where they discuss men’s ‘options,’” Dig said. “Instead of virtual reality sex or robots, this guy wants a girlfriend - and not just one who will give him what he wants, but one who _wants_ to give him what he wants.”

“A submissive sex object,” Felicity said. “A possession. Like a mail-order bride fetish, but locally sourced. Gross.” She looked over the records on the monitors. “So you think that this guy’s spraying these women and then conditioning them during their time together to do what?”

This is where it got really bad. Felicity already looked pissed. Dig didn’t love getting into this guy’s head either. “I think he’s looking for the perfect girl,” he said. “But he doesn’t want to make his decision until he’s had the full experience. He sprays these girls, spends the night with them. So far he hasn’t found Miss Right. But if he conditions the rest of these women, he has a stable of girls to draw from.”

“A _stable_ of girls?” Felicity said.

“Their words, not mine,” Dig said. “He’s picking a certain type of girl: young, very attractive, and socially popular. This is the type of girl who, generally speaking, doesn’t go for guys like him. So if one - or all of them - doesn’t turn out to be what he wants for a girlfriend, he still gets to have control. If this experiment works, he’ll be able to elicit the conditioned response in the future whenever it suits him.”

“Which _means_?” Oliver looked irritated.

“It means he’ll be able to crook his little finger, and they’ll drop their panties for him. Whenever,” Felicity said.

“I think that’s the _goal_ ,” Dig said. “But this isn’t exactly the scientific method, so who knows how this has all turned out for him.”

Felicity nodded slowly. “It not like he can compare the physiology or psychology of his subjects before and after. There’s no control group. He can only do his thing and then see if it gets the result he wanted.” She clicked through a few more files. “I wonder if Kayla was less susceptible. Maybe she told him where he could go. He’s probably taking the pics and videos so he can get off later, but perhaps money isn’t the goal. Do we know if he’s actually blackmailed the other girls?”

“Kayla’s is the only file that mentions a blackmail attempt. The other ones are rape accusations filed by these girls’ - and some of them _are_ minors - parents.”

“So we jumped to conclusions based on the reddit post,” Felicity said. “If Kayla’s the one he blackmailed, what does that say about her?”

“I’m more concerned about the bonding affect the drug seems to have,” Dig said because that was the immediate concern that neither Oliver nor Felicity seemed to be picking up on it. “Since you were both sprayed and out of it, I’m sure you didn’t spend your time trying to train each other to respond to a specific stimulus.”

“I told you,” Felicity said, “We can’t remember it.”

Oliver opened his mouth and then closed it.

“Okay, but here’s the thing,” Dig said. “Regular sex has a bonding effect. People associate good experiences with good feelings about the people they experienced them with, so they often mistake sex for love. But if this drug messes with your head and there are multiple, uh, good experiences, then the whole Pavlov thing could maybe work. Sex and feelings and a specific person plus a heightened state of consciousness? See where I’m going with this?”

“You think we’re bonded now?” Oliver asked.

Dig sighed. “I’m afraid that might have happened. Who knows about the conditioning or how long the drug will remain in your system. We don’t understand how it works.”

“So the microwave dings, and we’ll drool,” Oliver said.

“He’s more worried about me jumping you when my cell phone goes off,” Felicity said with an annoyed look.

“I did call you all night,” Dig said with a shake of his head. Of course, that wasn’t what he was really worried about. Just because you were conditioned to react didn’t mean you didn’t have the ability to fight that conditioning. “I think we have to focus on how this could affect the team.”

“It’s not going to affect the team,” Felicity said.

“Look,” Dig said, “we can’t be good together if we don’t trust each other, so now is the time to be honest.”

“I am being honest,” Felicity said. “Oliver and I have already talked, and we’ve agreed that this will not be a problem.”

Dig looked at Oliver and his “What can you do, man?” look matched his light shrug perfectly.

Dig sighed and crossed his arms. Way to nut up, _man_. “I know this isn’t how things usually work,” he said, “but I’m the only one not compromised here. I’ll take responsibility for making the wrong call with regards to you two last night, but what happened happened. For now, though, I think we have to lay down some ground rules.”

“Ground rules?” Oliver asked. “What kind of ground rules?”

“If this was Afghanistan, and you were under my leadership, I’d move one of you to another unit like _that_ ,” Dig said. “But we only have one unit and need both of you for it to work right. We need _both of you_. This is your mission, Oliver, but without Felicity we’re operating blind, so we’re just going to have to push through.”

Dig shifted on his feet. “I wish I had a blackboard so I’d have something to tap.” He looked down at the ground and then up again. “You two had sex. This was not a one-night stand. You have a relationship. There’s nothing wrong with you if what happened makes you feel things. Now or later.”

Oliver looked intently at the wall, and Felicity sucked in air. Dig held up a finger. “Just hear me out. I’m older than both of you.” He smiled in an attempt to lessen the tension. “I was fully prepared to let whatever this thing is between you guys take its own sweet time and play itself out. I hoped it’d take awhile. Workplace relationships have a tendency to distract from the work, but what can you do?”

“Diggle, what are you talking about?” Felicity asked, with an embarrassed laugh. “We don’t have a _thing_.”

“What’s your point, Dig?” Oliver took a step towards him.

Dig plowed on. “We count on each other. For this mission and everything else. What we’re doing? It’s not exactly normal. We spend our free time chasing criminals. Oliver has his mission, yeah, and it’s been a way for me to get my head around some of the shit I brought back with me stateside too. I don’t know what your reasons are, Felicity, but you’ve been hiding your light under a bushel. I’m not asking questions, but don’t think I haven’t noticed.”

She looked startled. “I’m not just a potted plant down here. I have eyes,” Dig said. “Look, neither of you are seeing anyone right now, are you?”

“No-o,” Felicity said.

“You’d know if I was,” Oliver said.

“Good,” Diggle said. “We dodged a bullet there. For now, let’s keep it that way.”

“I don’t see how that matters,” Felicity said. “What if I meet someone? You’re saying just because,” she jerked a hand towards Oliver, “ _this_ happened, I can’t date?”

“Denial ain’t just a river in Egypt, Felicity. You see what I’m saying? You and Oliver having sex? You can’t just pretend it didn’t happen. How will you feel when he escorts a supermodel to QC’s Christmas party?”

She opened her mouth, “I--I’d be fine with it,” she said, jerking her chin up. “Oliver can see who he wants. It doesn’t have anything to do with me.” Her eyes were a little too focused on Dig’s chest, though.

“If you run him into a bus because you’re angry at him for that, it’s gonna be a problem.”

“I wouldn’t do that,” Felicity said.

“You know I don’t sleep with every woman I meet, right?” Oliver asked, scowling. “Felicity gave me the third degree about this before.”

“Only every other one,” Felicity mumbled.

“See!” Dig said. “That’s what I mean! If you’re going to be hurt by him seeing other people--”

“Seeing _other_ people?” Oliver asked.

“Seeing _people_ ,” Dig said, “then we’ve got to keep a lid on it. For now.” When it came to his efforts with women, Oliver had the savoir faire of a 4th grader, but it didn’t seem to stop him from messing up his life or theirs. The thing is, he needed Felicity.

When Dig had met Oliver a year ago, he’d noticed the sense of aloneness the other man had dragged around with him. Oliver, even while he’d smiled and shaken hands and put on a show, had been keening on the inside, his loneliness so tangible it was like a third person in the room. The Oliver they’d retrieved a few months ago from Lian Yu was still removed - he still stood like a guard on watch - but some of his smiles were real now. Dig knew he’d been a part of that, but Felicity had been too.

Oliver only trusted a handful of people, but she was one of them. He softened when he was around her. His iron will gave way. Dig had beaten his head against Oliver’s brick wall will trying to get him to reevaluate his methods. Felicity, in the first week of their partnership had simply walked out when Oliver got pigheaded and didn’t listen. When she suggested he take on the Dodger, and the man had automatically switched gears. Neither the team nor Oliver could afford to lose her.

He turned to Felicity. “And you can’t let your thoughts go down the ‘All men are pigs’ trail. You have to remember that _Oliver_ didn’t sleep with you and dump you. That asshole,” he pointed to the computer monitor, “drugged you, and something bad happened.”

“It wasn’t really b--” Oliver said, but shut up when Dig shot him a look.

“Alright,” Felicity said.

“Alright?” Dig asked.

“I guess that’s fair. We don’t date, and we don’t blame. I can handle that. It won’t be that long anyway. We’ll forget this even happened and get back to doing our jobs.”

“One more thing, and I can’t believe I’m saying this,” Dig said. “If either of you need to talk about what happened or how you feel, you come to me. Like I said, I was the only one who wasn’t sprayed. We’ll get through this.”

He’d just finished saying that when one of Felicity’s monitors gave a beep. All three of them turned their attention to it. Felicity went to the keyboard and clicked a couple of keys.

“It looks like our chasing him down didn’t stop this guy from trolling for another victim last night,” Felicity said. “He just posted another pic - a new one.”

“We’ll get him,” Dig said.

“We’d better,” she said. “I’m 110% done with this piece of scum. I’m going to start going through the police database looking at headshots. I kind of remember what he looked like. At the very least I can rule a bunch of people out.”

“I’m going to hit the streets,” Oliver said.

“It’s broad daylight,” Felicity said.

“I can’t just sit here,” Oliver said. “I’ll go back to St. Elmo’s and look around. Ask if they know a short, skinny guy with reddish facial hair. Whatever.”

“Change your pants,” Dig said. “That leather look is for nighttime only, bar or no bar.”

Oliver gave him a rueful smile, and headed for the lair’s bathroom. Felicity clicked away at her station. And Dig worried about the pair of them.

Despite everything that just happened, it was good to know that some things stayed the same.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A few things:
> 
> This was the first time I really got into Diggle's head as a fanfic writer, and it was a bit challenging getting his voice right. It wasn't hard to get into his head, but writing an authentic Dig - well, I hope I pulled it off. I felt like his primary reaction would be concern and that he'd have to be the voice of reason for both his little bro and his little sis. I'm trying to explore how this affects the OTA which has always been one of my favorite aspects of the show. How embarrassing, tho. 
> 
> Second - the sex pollen chemistry/psychology is _not_ real science, but in case all that stuff about Pavlov up there bored you, the gist is, for Oliver and Felicity there could be after effects and they might be sexual as well as emotional. I hope you roll with me on this.
> 
> Finally, the whole online PUA community is real and revolting. It's like scammers teaching non-scammers how to scam women for "pump and dump" sex. These guys actually refer to their women as stables, the difference being they have no care for their "horses." The upshot is there are plenty of people who would buy and use the sex pollen aerosol as a weapon if it actually existed. That is so frightening to me. 
> 
> As always, if this chapter interested you, weigh in in the comments section below!


	6. Private Detectives

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The aphrodisiac eases itself out of Felicity's system, and she decides to tie up some of the loose strings in Oliver's life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is for [quiveringbunny](http://archiveofourown.org/users/quiveringbunny/pseuds/quiveringbunny)! It got hotter than I originally intended, so enjoy. :)
> 
> If you like this chapter, here's [a little extra fic](http://archiveofourown.org/works/6769795) for you that fits in nicely here.

Felicity avoided the lair for the next few days. The weekend was slow, so the team did research on Red Beard separately and, unfortunately, came up empty. Felicity ran facial recognition in numerous databases and found no matches. She checked school records for chemistry majors in Starling’s four institutions of higher learning. Nothing. Dig canvassed the bars the guy had trolled for women, and no one remembered him. Oliver whaled on a guy he caught assaulting a woman in the alley near Verdant and called the police to pick up the remains.

There were so few online footprints for Red Beard that Felicity began to wonder if he were working alone. Could he be both a chemistry whiz and a hacker? It seemed unlikely that the genius fairy would whack anyone twice like that.

Monday morning at the office was momentarily awkward until Felicity dug into the pile of work she had to do. Queen Consolidated had an important upcoming meeting to discuss a chemical research company they were planning to acquire, and she had to make sure she and Oliver were prepped with the info they needed before the board of directors came together.

Moira’s case was heating up as well, and Felicity knew that Oliver was distracted by concern for both his mother and his sister. They were finally talking but worried now about the district attorney seeking the death penalty for Moira’s role in the Undertaking. Felicity was more concerned with how Oliver would fare if the state found guilty and executed his mother. He wasn’t going to take her death lying down, that was for sure. Oliver didn’t react very well to his loved ones getting killed, and they’d just gotten him back from Lian Yu and on track.

For the first four or five days after being sprayed Felicity felt like she was coming out of her skin. Her temperature fluctuated wildly, and her skin itched so badly she dug her fingernails into her palms. She was turned on all of the time too. Like _all of the time_. Watching Oliver stroll into QC wearing his tailored suits was torture, and working in their all-glass offices was like being in a fishbowl. She and Oliver swam about all day in their respective sections trying not to stare at each other. He was a betta fish with his multi-colored fins and tail, lurking about sexily, waiting for fight time to begin. She was a goldfish wondering why this fancy aquarium had no little castle in which to hide.

She continued to avoid the lair. It seemed safer. There was too much possibility that he might be working out half naked or doing some otherwise hyper macho thing guaranteed to set her off. She scheduled an appointment with his barber without asking him. His hair was growing out to a very tug-able length, and it was giving her ideas. _His hair was giving her ideas_. She was in so much trouble.

By Thursday, though, she felt a little better. Her pulse finally came down to a normal rate, and she didn’t have to put her hands in mittens at night to stop herself from scratching. She popped into the lair to update her computers and make sure everything was running fine. Oliver was sparring with Dig on the mats, but she kept her eyes to herself and got her work done.

Friday afternoon Isabel dropped by to see Oliver who was, of course, not there, although Dig was. There was a new female vigilante in town, and Oliver had gotten cagey about his whereabouts. Felicity and Diggle had gotten in the habit of consulting each other about keeping Oliver under at least minimal supervision, but that didn’t stop him from going off like a lone wolf. Felicity wondered what he wasn’t telling them now. Oliver was Oliver, though, and her job was to protect and help him, so she straightened when Isabel entered their offices.

“Where is Mr. Queen?” Isabel asked without preamble. “Monday is the meeting with AEC Chemical, and I need to know where he’s at with that. Has he signed the papers I sent over?”

“Not as of yet,” Felicity said calmly. “I have them here for him when he returns.”

“Where is he, anyway?” Isabel asked. She was dressed in a scarlet kimono dress that should have looked ridiculous but instead looked like it had been designed for her. Her black hair hung straight and sleek down her back, and her fingernails were lacquered talons.

“He’s a very busy man,” Felicity said, noticing a chip in her fuchsia manicure. She put her hand in the pocket of her pencil skirt.

“Busy,” Isabel said in the most condescending way possible. “Is it Sorority Week at Starling U?”

Felicity stared at her.

“I forgot, you wouldn’t think that was funny,” Isabel said. “Competition.”

“Would you like to leave Mr. Queen a message?” Felicity asked. “I will have him return it at his earliest possible convenience.” She worked her voice in an attempt to make those last words come out sounding like “Please die,” but couldn’t quite manage it. Politeness was an unfortunate habit. She crossed her arms instead, and over in the corner Dig smiled.

“Be sure to,” Isabel said. “He has to learn he can’t dodge me and that things aren’t going to be run in a slipshod way around here anymore. If he wants to helm Queen Consolidated, he’s going to have to put in the work.” She turned and walked into the hallway, her heels clicking against the floor in a sharp staccato. She punched the elevator button and then glared back at Felicity and Diggle as if it were their fault when it didn’t immediately arrive. Felicity debated the wisdom of raising an eyebrow at her, but before she could decide, the elevator finally came, and Isabel disappeared into it.

“I don’t like her,” Felicity said.

“No one does,” Dig said.

“I don’t trust her,” Felicity said.”

Dig shifted on his weight. “No one does. She was probably hatched.”

Felicity laughed. “You mean like a turtle?” she asked. “That’s good. Her head digging itself out of the sand, her cold reptilian eyes wincing at the light.”

“I mean like a dragon bubbling up out of the magma,” Dig said and Felicity giggled.

“I’m going to look into her. Oliver hasn’t done his due diligence. I don’t trust her, and not just because she’s trying to take over this company. It’s because she’s evil.”

It was Diggle’s turn to cross his arms.

“What?”

“It’s Oliver’s company.”

“And I’m Oliver’s executive assistant,” Felicity said. “I might need a name, though. We can’t use QC’s private detective to dig up dirt on her, obviously.”

Dig raised his eyebrows at her, but didn’t say anything.

“I’m also going to see Moira,” Felicity said.

“In Iron Heights?”

“That’s where she is,” Felicity said briskly and then “Look, Oliver could use some help, and I think she should know her children are struggling a bit with what she did.”

“Dragons,” Dig said. “It’s not always wise to track them to their lairs.”

“She’s in prison,” Felicity said. “What can she do?”

“Well, sitting in the Queen mansion, she already helped kill 503 people,” Dig said.

The elevator bell dinged again then, and Felicity looked up to see Oliver’s well polished shoe appear, lifted in its usual 15 degree angle as he strode forward. He turned the corner and tilted his head, and she watched his normal situation awareness flip on. He saw Dig and her and smiled as he walked toward them.

“All’s I know is Walter White would have been dead before season one was half over,” Dig said, switching topics. “Let alone five seasons. Give me a break.”

“But it’s the juxtaposition between the mundane and the horrible that makes it funny,” Felicity said. “If Walter and Jesse weren’t such bumblers, the show wouldn’t be nearly as enjoyable. Plus, the point is to show Walter’s transition from everyday mensch to dead-eyed drug kingpin.”

“I get that, and I like the show,” Dig said. “It’s just that they’d be dead. They’d never make it five years in that world. White boys. I’m just sayin’.”

“Are you guys talking about Breaking Bad again?” Oliver asked.

“The Wire, actually,” Felicity said grinning at Diggle.

“I’m not talking The Wire with you,” Dig said. “You know I didn’t grow up on the mean streets of Detroit, right? I grew up in--”

“Southfield,” Felicity said. “I know. In a subdivision.”

“My dad worked for GM,” Dig said.

Felicity rolled her eyes. “I _know_. Vegas is more interesting than Southfield sounds. How’d you get to be such a badass then?”

“How did Oliver get to be such a badass? How are you so tough?” Dig asked. “Life, man. Life. But I don’t want to talk about The Wire.”

“I don’t know why you two go on so much about this stuff,” Oliver said, and Felicity rolled her eyes - mentally, this time - again. Oliver could be surprisingly preachy on this topic, weaned as he’d been from all popular culture for five years. He said television was a distraction.

“You have to make time for good TV,” Felicity said. “We’re in a new golden age.”

Oliver gave her an impassive look. She didn’t care if he approved of her Netflix queue, though, she was a woman with both a day job and a night job. Sometimes you had to just sit and veg.

“Right now, though,” Felicity said, “I need you to go through some paperwork and sign off on a few things Isabel’s been expecting. And, no, they can’t wait. She made her demands clear.”

“Okay,” Oliver said.

Since he was both there and being so accommodating, Felicity got up immediately to get those folders. She walked over to the room’s only file cabinet. These open offices were minimalist in that high-end way, but to maintain the design, there were hardly any practical amenities.

She opened the third filing cabinet down and went through the folders. This paperwork had come in batches, but she’d kept it all together before it went through Oliver. It wasn’t under the AEC tab, though. Where was it? She pulled the cabinet out further and bent over to search further back. Her heel snagged in a shallow indentation in the tile, and she wobbled but recovered. Oh, there it was. She pulled it, backed up, and turned around to give it to Oliver.

He was standing there staring at her, and his forehead had broken out in a sweat. “Is there something wrong, Oliver?” she asked, stepping towards him. He looked like she could push him over with a finger, his body was that straight. He grabbed the folder out of her hand, turned around, and headed for the elevator.

“Oliver?" she asked again.

“I have to go,” he said. “Something just came up. I’ll get these to you as soon as he can.” He raised the folder over the top of his head and violently punched the elevator key. “Dig?”

“O-kay,” Dig said, frowning and moving to follow him out into the hallway.

“I’ll be out tonight,” Oliver said. “The mayor. Dig can help me. See you later!” 

The elevator dinged, and he was gone.

 

>>\--->

 

  
Felicity got home late after working for hours on all items related to the AEC deal. She got some Chinese take out and made it home by 8 PM. She pulled her key from the door, threw her purse and the take out on the kitchen counter, and started shedding her clothes. Her feet were killing her, and she was so glad to get out of that skirt. It was too tight, and she’d had to fuss with it all day. She never should have worn it to the office. As she made her way to the bedroom, she flipped on her television.

Three hours later, fed and mentally rested, she put herself through her pilates workout and ran a bath. She made the water as hot as she could stand in hopes that it would relax her, and she rinsed her whole body down with her detachable shower head. One way or another, she was going to get this tension out. Afterwards, she pulled on some sleep shorts and a tank top and went to make herself a cup of sleepytime tea.

It was nearing midnight, and she put the coffeemaker on with the kettle. Oliver had put her on his rotation after the Dollmaker fracas, and she had taken to putting out coffee for him on her little back deck. She left that door unlocked until she went to sleep in case he needed to go to the bathroom or something. So far he’d never taken her up on the invitation - that she knew of - but it was hard to find a clean bathroom in Starling City at this time of night. This was knowledge she wished she didn’t have.

She pulled her Doctor Who mug and one of her QC travel mugs down from the cupboard, putting the tea bag in the first. When the coffee finished brewing, she unscrewed the blue top from the silver canister and filled it all the way up to the top with the hot liquid. She put in a heaping tablespoon full of sugar and stirred it in. Oliver took his coffee black, but she added sugar anyway because black coffee was disgusting and he could stand to indulge a little.

This was different than making him coffee at the office, she reminded herself. Completely different. If he fell asleep out there, he could get killed.

She fumbled with the lid of the travel mug, and coffee spilled over her hand. “Damn it!” she said as she screwed it on forcibly. The blue Q on the circular lid stared back at her like an eye. Unblinking.

Felicity took the mug and opened the door to the deck, meaning to put it on the glass table as usual, but as she stepped out, she saw the Arrow. He stood there staring at the door and now at her. His hood was low over his eyes, and his posture was guarded. In that moment, Felicity had a exquisitely detailed flash of him flinging her body against her living room wall. In it she was plastered as close as possible to that leather, kissing him desperately and coming to pieces around a cock she needed to keep fucking her more than she needed to keep breathing.

She dropped the mug.

He didn’t move, and she clenched her hands into fists rather than step toward him and what would happen if she got an inch closer. “Gotta go,” she said as the whirled back towards the door. “Stay safe.” Then she slammed the door and locked it firmly against any intrusion.

She had to go to bed. Yes, sleep. Sleep was what she needed. She grabbed her mug of tea and headed for her bedroom.

 

>>\--->

 

Felicity was typing. Her fingers felt heavier than usual on the keyboard, but she was tired. That must explain it. Something in her garter belt pressed painfully into her side, and her high heels felt teetery even firmly placed as they were on the floor beneath her chair. She felt hot, but that was probably just the light on her desk. It was like a high beam pointed right at her. She had to get this letter finished. It was important.

The “q” letter in Queen Consolidated did not want to press down, so she pushed her left pinky finger harder on the key. Still it wouldn’t move. She looked down. She was typing on a manual typewriter, an old fashioned one with circles for each letter and heavy strikers underneath. She craned her neck to peer underneath the key to look for any kind of obstruction when the buzzer rang. The light on the intercom blinked, and she pushed the button next to it down.

“Yes?” she said.

“Miss Smoak,” Oliver’s voice, a bit tinny through the metal mesh of the intercom, said, “I need to you to come in here and take some dictation. And bring me a cup of coffee while you’re at it.”

Felicity narrowed her eyes, but said, “Yes, Mr. Queen.” She stood and found the coffee already in one hand and a small notebook in her other. As she walked toward Oliver’s office, she saw herself reflected in the glass: a small woman in a green polyester A-line dress with a tall blond beehive and cat glasses. She frowned and pulled the scooped neck of her dress higher and straightened her glasses. There, that was better.

When she reached Oliver’s office, she knocked on the glass. He nodded at her. “Come in.”

She pushed the door open, crossed the room, and put the coffee next to Oliver on his desk. It was the only piece of furniture in the room besides his chair, enormous and rectangular, a mahogany monstrosity with an inlaid leather surface and at least 7 drawers. “You wanted me to take dictation, Mr. Queen?”

“I did,” he said, “but later. First I need you to perform your other task.”

“My other task?” she asked, but she knew what he meant. Her heartbeat ticked up. She felt it beat against the delicate skin in the hollow of her throat.

“Yes,” he said, “the one everyone thinks you’re here for. You don’t need to undress, though, and leave those” he gestured to her heels, “on.”   

“I don’t think--” she said.

“Good,” he said. “Since that won’t be necessary for this. Now,” he made a twirling motion with his finger, “turn around.”

She swallowed and faced the desk, and he ran a hand up her stocking. “Garter belt,” he said and made an approving sound in his throat. “Nice.”

“This wasn’t what I signed up for,” Felicity said in a faltering voice.

“Me neither,” Oliver said, “but we don’t have any choice.” She heard him unzip his pants as she felt his hand press into the small of her back. Then his other hand was tugging her panties down. When they slid down her calves, he squatted down and said, “Lift.” She did, with both feet, and he tossed the underwear on top of the desk. It was white with tiny green arrows shot through pink hearts. Felicity closed her eyes.

Oliver pressed a kiss against her thigh as he trailed his fingers up towards her center. “That’s not true,” he said. “You do have a choice: Would you like me to fuck you hard and fast or slow and even?”

She swallowed again. “Slow,” she said. “Until I tell you otherwise.”

He nodded and the soft, bristly hair on his chin abraded the soft skin of her upper thigh and sent a shudder through her. She didn’t know why she was doing this, why she wasn’t scared, but she felt her own wetness against his hand as he reached up through her folds and slid his thumb inside her. Her face felt hot against the cool leather of the desk, and she arched her back and pushed towards his hand, grinding against his calloused fingertips.

He stood then and unzipped her dress part way, trailing his tongue up her back and neck. He lightly bit her where her shoulder met her neck. Then not so lightly.

“Why are we doing this?” she asked.

“Because it was inevitable,” he said. He pulled his thumb out and then widened the space between her legs with his thigh. He lifted the polyester skirt of her dress up and gently put it on her back. Felicity felt the cooler air of the room on her exposed ass and back. “Didn’t you realize?”

She hadn’t. Or had she?

“Now,” he said, “hold onto the desk.” And he prodded the thick head of his cock against her folds and, tilting his hips, thrust inside her.

She gasped and widened her legs to accommodate him, curling her fingers around the lip on the far side of the desk. His hand slid around to hold her neck, and she felt like she could barely move as he pushed all the way in until he was buried inside her. His thighs were like pillars around hers, his face loomed over her, and he groaned.

“You’re so tight,” he said in her ear. “You feel amazing.” He pulled out all the way to her opening, dragging her hips back with his, and then he pushed back in again. She felt the zipper on his wool trousers scrape against her ass, and his belt buckle slid across the surface of the desk.

He pulled her head up and back with his hand, leaning the other against the desk, and the buckle began to bang rhythmically on the mahogany. With her back arched and her head so far back, she could see people reflected in the glass of the office wall. There they were, fully dressed, clearly fucking on a large desk. Inside the woman’s gaping neckline, the tops of her breasts bounced with the force of the man’s thrusts.

“Still want it slow?” Oliver asked.

She shook her head. “Uh-uh,” she said. “Faster. Fuck me harder. Much harder.”

He laughed and kissed the side of her neck. The woman in the glass shoved back against the man, grinding back against him as he picked up the pace. She saw the man’s face disappear and felt Oliver drag the zipper of her dress down further with his teeth. The front of the woman’s dress collapsed and revealed a rather formidable looking bra that was gone in another moment, replaced with the man’s hands. His lips returned to her neck. She saw and felt his teeth there, but she couldn’t touch him back because her arms were trapped in the lowered sleeves of her dress.

The buttons of his linen shirt pressed into her back in the same line his tongue had traced, and the feet of the desk made sharp squeals as the people in the glass, both of them grunting and panting, frantically mated. Inch by inch the desk moved across the tile.

“Stop,” she said, and the man looked up. Part of her brain registered that the man in the glass was Oliver and the woman was herself, but then waves of pleasure broke over her and she closed her eyes and sank back down on him, reveling in her impalement and giving over to the need to clench down on him. God, the man was endowed.

“What?” he asked. She opened her eyes after the last wave subsided. It took her a second to realize what he was asking, but then she gestured at her hands.

“I can’t move,” she said. “Can we…?”

He leaned away from her, and the dress fell all the way down her front. She slipped her hands out of the sleeves and pushed back into him and then away. His cock slipped out. She wiggled around and held him in her hands.

“Why are you doing this?” she asked, caressing him slowly. She tried to remember why they were there. She was supposed to be getting papers signed? Take dictation?

“Don’t you know?” A tiny smile tugged at his lips. “I’m doing this...and this…” he pushed her back and then lifted both of her legs up and open, dragging her ass to the edge of the desk and climbing on it himself, “because you want me to. Because you _need_ me to. Although you might like it better this way.” He waved a hand, and his shirt and suit coat were replaced by green leather. He put a hand on both of her legs and, in the Arrow voice, he said, “Good enough for you?” Then he plunged back inside of her.

She tilted her hips and matched him thrust for thrust, then leaned her face to the side on the leather and watched the muscles in his thighs flex as the went up and down, up and down. She felt like every spare space inside her body was filled with him. There wasn’t a molecule that didn’t feel like it was being thoroughly fucked and in the best possible way.

She nodded as the tempo picked up. “Yes,” she said, biting her lip and sucking air in and out through her nose and mouth rather desperately. “Yes. No. Yes, yes!” There is was, those waves coming again. She could feel them lapping against her center now. God, just a little more.

His free hand caught on the front pocket of her dress and pulled it down. Suddenly he stilled. “What’s this?” he asked, reaching for something in her garter belt. Felicity stiffened and then tried to jerk away from him. She saw a little black book tied with twine. She struggled against him, but her arms were pinned underneath her own legs.

Oliver held the book up where she could see it. It was only about three inches long, but across it’s cover, written in red, was the word SECRETS.

“Secrets?” Oliver asked. She squirmed, but he pushed hard into her again and something inside her blossomed. She groaned. He rocked into her four or five more times, and she panted open mouthed.

“What kind of secrets?” he asked.

She could think of a couple, but she shook her head. “I don’t...I can’t…” she said. Just a little closer, a little more, and she’d be done. Then she could grab her book from him and run.

“I’ll stop if you don’t tell me what’s in here,” Oliver said, slowing down. She moaned in disappointment as that delicious feeling receded.

“What do you want?” he asked. “Is it this?” He waved his hand again, “Or this?” Now he was lying on top of her covering her extended body, kissing her softly and then nuzzling her neck. He slowed his pace and split his rhythm into one hard thrust, then three slower ones. He pushed into her hard again and took her lower lip between his and lightly tugged on it. “Tell me now.”

“I don’t know,” she said, breathing heavily. He was overpowering her, overcoming her, taking her, leaving nothing behind. What would be left of her when this was over? “I don’t know what I want!” she said and pushed at him with all of her strength.

Felicity gasped as she sat up in bed. She sat there trying to catch her breath, taking in the darkness of her bedroom and its shadows, and she became very much afraid she’d screamed that aloud.

Because she wasn’t alone. Oliver was here with her, sitting in the chair in the corner of the room. She couldn’t see him, but she knew he was there all the same. She could feel his energy. He was such an enormous presence, she didn’t know how other people could miss him, how he ever managed to sneak up on anyone.

“Oliver?” she said into the darkness.

He didn’t say anything. She forced herself to breathe slowly as she went over in her head what she might have said in her sleep. Could she have - oh my god - moaned his name? The sheets around her in the bed were in serious disarray, and she was sweating profusely.

“Oliver,” she said again.

“I remember, Felicity,” he said.

“Remember what?” she whispered.

“I remember what it feels like to be inside you,” Oliver said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I loooooooove writing dream imagery. You get to play with your characters in an even bigger sandbox. Always, always fun. For more discussion about what I was thinking about when I wrote this chapter, [click over to my Tumblr here](http://fiacresgirl.tumblr.com/post/141444636434/the-pollen-vector-dream-sequence). 
> 
> Leave a comment, if you're so inclined. They are always appreciated.


	7. Pillow Talk

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Felicity wakes up from her erotic dream, and Oliver is there in her room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's a little awkward dedicating a chapter this hot to a reader, but I think [Jen](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Lademonessa/pseuds/Lademonessa) can handle it. Thanks for the encouragement! 
> 
> Thanks also to [Bre](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Bre/pseuds/Bre/works?fandom_id=587792), [juliesioux](http://archiveofourown.org/users/juliesioux/pseuds/juliesioux), and [Sarah](http://archiveofourown.org/users/alanna_the_lionheart/pseuds/alanna_the_lionheart/works?fandom_id=587792) for the [conversation about the condoms](http://fiacresgirl.tumblr.com/post/139182811709/ptp-tea-time-1-condoms). :)

Felicity sat there, breathing hard in the darkened room, and Oliver watched her become aware of herself and her surroundings. The moonlight shone in through the window and lit up her white tank top. He could see her nipples clearly; they were hard buds pressing up against the thin fabric. Her blond hair lay in wild disarray around her. He knew the second she sensed him there in the room.

“Oliver?” she said.

He sat very still. If he didn’t move, if he stayed right here in this chair, he could control himself. He still had his gloves on. He still had his _hood_ on. Watching her writhe about on her bed panting his name was a new kind of torture for him, but he supposed he deserved it for coming in here in the first place. Even if he knew where the key was, even with her permission - what had he thought would happen?

This. Obviously this.

Still, he’d been drawn to her townhouse over and over this past week. He liked it. He liked the polka dotted porch light she had by her back door and the little table-and-chairs setup in the corner of the deck. It was cozy. He’d worked this stop into his rounds more and more, and tonight he’d barely moved five blocks in any one direction from this spot. He now had a good bead on what crime was being committed in Felicity’s neighborhood. Fortunately, it wasn’t too concerning.

He’d been waiting for her when she’d stepped out onto her deck with the coffee. He knew her schedule. When she’d seen him and dropped the travel mug, he’d known she was having the same reaction he’d had earlier in the day at the office. A conditioned response is what she and Dig had called it. That seemed like a bland term for a flash of unbelievably erotic images and a sudden and fierce desire to have sex with her right then and there. But he wasn’t in charge of assigning words to things.

He guessed that was good.

“Oliver,” Felicity said again.

“I remember, Felicity,” he said because there was no point in denying it anymore.

“Remember what?” she whispered.

“I remember what it feels like to be inside you,” Oliver said as the images appeared again in his mind, some of them memories and some dreams and fantasies. Probably. He couldn’t remember everything about that night, but he sure as hell remembered some of it.

“How long have you been there?”

Was she talking about here in this chair or circling the blocks around her townhouse? “Awhile,” he said. “You said I could...What were you dreaming about?” As if he didn’t know. Like her breathed, “Mr. Queen,” hadn’t been a dead giveaway. Still, she was the one maintaining she didn’t remember, that the night between them hadn’t been seared into both of their minds, drugged or not.

She swallowed hard and straightened her back. “You,” she said. “Us.”

“You said you didn’t remember,” he said.

“It wasn’t a memory,” she said and bit her lip. “But I wasn’t completely honest about that either.”

Something in him flared to life at that admission, but it also made this situation more difficult because, despite the fact that he was here now in her room, he didn’t want to mess up things between them. His hands closed over the arms of the chair. “Tell me to leave,” he said.

She looked confused. “Tell me to get out of here, and I will,” he said. “Tell me this scares you - that I scare you - that _this is a bad idea_. Then close your eyes, and I’ll be gone.”

She cocked her head at him and stared for a good minute. She leaned forward, climbed off the bed, and crossed the room to him.

“I’m not,” she said, leaning forward and putting her hands over his gloved ones.

“You-you’re not what?” he asked.

“Afraid of you,” Felicity said. “I never have been.”

He breathed out slowly. “What are we going to do?”

She put her knee between his thighs and eased into his lap. “I guess we’re going to see where this goes,” she said.

“It’s your choice.”

“I know,” she said.

“Dig said we shouldn’t have sex,” he said.

“Dig said we shouldn't have sex with other people,” she said. “I don’t know about you, but I’ve been going out of my skull thinking of this all week. I thought it would be easier on both of us if I didn’t remember, but I do.”

He sat up straight, feeling both relieved and triumphant at her admission. He wasn’t so forgettable after all then. “You do? How much?”

“Some of it,” she said. “It was good.” She licked her lips. “It was really good. Right?”

“It was great,” he said.

“So if we do this, we don’t tell Dig,” she said. She put her hand on the zipper of his jacket and tugged it down.

He nodded.

“He doesn’t need to know,” she said. “We’ll get this out of our systems, and everything will be fine.” She slid her hand down his chest and began to tug his shirt out of his pants. He shrugged out of his jacket and dropped it on the floor, then tugged his shirt over his head.

“How did you know I was dreaming about you?” she asked, working on the button on his pants.

“You said ‘Mr. Queen.’ Multiple times.”

“Oh,” she said. “I guess that would be a giveaway.”

She walked over to her bedside table, opened the drawer, and pulled out some condoms.

“You have condoms now?” he asked.

“I bought them the other day,” she said. “I didn’t know why. I just threw them in the cart with my milk and Mint Milanos.” She pulled out a handful and put them on the top of the table.

He almost laughed. “You have high expectations.”

She looked down. “Oh,” she said with a laugh. “Well, go big or go home, right?” She crossed back over to him and ran her hands up his abs. “Ready?”

“Okay, look,” he said, pulling off his boots, “We’ve got to start with you because, after seeing you there,” he gestured to her bed, “I’m not going to last too long once I get inside you. Listening to you moan my name while we had sex in your dream has to be the most erotic thing ever.” He scooped her up in his arms and then dropped her ass first in the middle of the bed. He put his thumbs into the elastic waistband of her sleep shorts and pulled them and her panties down at the same time. “There.” Then he knelt on the bed and crept up between the legs she was trying to close.

“You want to start with this?” Felicity said, scootching back a bit towards the headboard.

“Yeah?” he said. “Is that alright?”

“It’s just kind of ‘Here it all is,’” she said with an awkward laugh.  

He frowned. “We’ve done this before.”

“Yes,” she said, nodding, “but I was hopped up on a weaponized aphrodisiac, so there wasn’t this ‘Did I shave?’ moment. Plus, I actually waxed last week. Not that that’s, you know, _important_ . I mean, you are getting laid here, right? Even if you are _Oliver Queen_.” She clamped her lips together and looked away.

Ah, there it was: his sexual history popping up again to cockblock him. He hadn’t expected this from Felicity because she was so confident and she never took any of his shit, but here she was embarrassed because she thought he was comparing her to other people. Hmm.

He crept up her body slowly until he got to her lips, and he kissed them gently, but firmly. “Okay,” he said, “you tell me what you want.” He intertwined her fingers with his and raised them above her head. “We’ll do that.”

She laughed again, but the tension was easing from her shoulders and torso. “So what kind of kissing do you like?” he asked.

“Kind of kissing?” she asked.

“You know,” he said, “butterfly kissing?” He dragged his eyelashes up her cheeks and batted them, then moved to touch her nose with his. “Eskimo kissing?”

She smiled at him. “Cute,” she said. “Is this the Ollie Queen routine?”

He stiffened. “The Ollie Queen routine?”

“You know, how you warm up girls,” she said. “Does this work?”

He leaned away from her as he realized she was right. He was used to putting Ollie on when he needed him. Did he need to be Ollie with her?

“Don’t get offended,” Felicity said. “I can see how it would be effective. All of that,” she gestured to his face and chest, “coming at you all ‘Baby’-like. It’s a good thing I’m immune to Ollie’s charms, though. Since I have to work with you.”

He bent his head and kissed her, sucking her lower lip into his mouth. “Cherries,” he said and ran his thumbs down her side slowly.

She shuddered and then pulled her hands free so she could loop them around his neck. “Burt’s Bees,” she said. “It’s wintertime. If I don’t use it religiously, my lips get chapped.” She slid her tongue in his mouth, and he took a little time to enjoy the feel of her exploring his shoulders and mouth. When she came up for air, he moved to nuzzle her chin and the side of her neck.

“Mmm,” she said, “nice. Very nice. Your whiskers aren’t as bristly as I remember them being.”

“Hmm,” he said and pressed himself against her center. He trailed his lips down her long neck. It took awhile, but it was worth it. When she groaned and squirmed lightly against him, he kissed his way down her chest. He raised his eyebrows for permission, she nodded, and he pulled up her tank top and sucked one hard nipple in his mouth. “Pretty,” he said and smiled. She lifted her hands and brought them up to push through her hair.

“They’re small,” she said. “Not like my…” Then she blushed. She blushed because she was talking about her ass _while_ he was pulling and sucking on her nipple. He smiled into her skin and bit down lightly then slid further down. Not entirely immune, then.

“Belly-button kisses,” he said, circling hers with his tongue. He trailed his way down to his original destination, and, this time, she was ready. He lightly licked her clit and then pushed between her folds and licked down to her center where she was very, very wet. He closed his eyes and breathed her in. Some kind of floral body wash and, underneath that, a very turned on woman. He kissed her hard there, leaning his chin within the hollow between her legs and pressing. She groaned louder.

He looked up the flat landscape of her belly and then through the valley of her breasts. She was braced on her elbows, staring at him with blazing dark eyes. Her pupils were enormous, and she was breathing through her mouth.

“I promise you, you won’t forget this time,” he said, and he slipped his index finger inside of her. She jerked back, and he reached up and pressed his hand flat on her stomach and pushed down. “Tell me how you want me.”

“W-what?” she asked.

“Fast, hard, light, soft? Tongue, fingers, what?” he asked.

“I, um… Tongue,” she said and swallowed. “Inside’s not enough. It feels good, but it won’t…”

He nodded and slipped another finger inside her and curled them up to reach towards her abdomen. She jerked and panted a bit, and he pressed a kiss into her thigh, pleased at her reaction.

“Good,” she said, “That’s good. Oh, yeah, that’s nice.” His fingers went in and out, slipping on her wetness, and he took note of how her hips jerked as he dragged his fingertips over that spongy oval of flesh and scraped them down to the rim of her pelvic bone. He pressed his face back down to her clit and sucked it into his mouth. She bucked hard, and his curving lips caught on the line of springy hair there.

“Ohhh, like that. Just like that,” she said.

It took him a few minutes to get a really effective rhythm going, but he discovered that pushing up and pressing down while sucking and nipping her clit made Felicity very happy. She also liked to use the word “fuck,” which was, frankly, a surprise. When her calves trembled, he slipped them over his shoulders.

Oliver pushed three fingers inside of her then and began to piston them in and out while he pressed down hard on her clit with his tongue. Her hips started to buck irregularly, and her legs, over his shoulders, began to shake hard. “Uh, uh, uh,” she moaned. “Mmhmm…” He snaked a hand up to fondle her breast, and she put hers over it and pressed down as she arched her back.

This was his favorite part of sex - when it got messy and loose. The point where release was  inescapable, so you just threw yourself into the heat, the pressure, and the gasping. For that moment, the two of you just _were_ , and there were no pretenses. The way Felicity was now, her fingers grasping at the sheets, her hair all around her, strands trailing through his stubble…fully alive with him. It was such a turn on. It might be more than he could handle to actually watch her come.

He recognized that she was almost there, though. He kept the pressure on her clit with his tongue but moved it around a bit to keep the sensation higher. She raked her fingers through his hair and pulled at it. It hurt a little, but he smiled.

“Glad you didn’t get this cut--” she said, sliding her fingers over the top of his head, trying to grab anything and missing. She braced her ass against his hand as she ground down on his fingers. “Oh, right there,” she said. “Right there right there right there. Don’t stop. Don’t stoppppppp--”

He felt her orgasm begin to roll through her, the inevitable climax, and she clenched hard against his fingers. “Oh my god, oh my god, ohmygod,” she said. “Yes, yessss--” He pushed in, quick and steady up up inside her, raking the pads of his fingers against the spongy flesh near her opening again and again, and she kept coming, pushing desperately against his face and grunting. Then she cried out, “Oliver!” and he felt a wetness against his chin as she squeezed her thighs against the sides of his head and then released them slowly.

Felicity relaxed into the mattress, boneless, sated, and impossibly beautiful. Her skin glowed in the moonlight from the window. Oliver laid his cheek against her lower belly and pressed a kiss there. After a minute, he sat up. His cock was fully erect and pushing against his stomach. He ran a hand through his stubble and traced his tongue over his lips, tasting her again. She watched him, and her eyes widened. “Oh my god,” she said. She lifted up her hips and looked underneath herself.  “Did I? I’ve never done that with someone before.” She was too unwound to really tense up, but her mouth pulled into an embarrassed grimace. “Sorry.”

He ran a hand up her side and lay down next to her, kissing her soundly on her mouth. “You never have to apologize to me for coming that hard,” he said. “It was my pleasure.” Then he pressed his cock in between her legs and up against her center. She jerked once, craned her head to kiss him back, and wrapped her arms back around his torso and down around his ass. He felt her fingertips trace the scarring there.

“While I’ve got you here,” he said, lifting his head, “is this okay? Because I’d really, _really_ like to fuck you now.”

  


>>\--->

  


The next round went, as he expected, pretty damn fast. Oliver was so keyed up after all of that, he managed about a minute’s worth of thrusting, and then he was done. He removed the condom, and apologized. “Usually I last longer, it’s just… Well, special circumstances.” He rolled off her and pulled her head into the hollow of his neck. She scooted back against him, and he ran his fingers over the soft skin of her breasts as he willed himself to breathe normally.

“You don’t have to apologize for coming that hard,” she said, with a laugh. “I can’t exactly accuse you of being a selfish lover,” she said slowly.

“What?” he asked when she didn’t say anything for several minutes.

“It’s just, with your history… Well, the tabloids emphasized Ollie’s party-boy antics. They weren’t really your best advertising. Not that you probably had to worry about finding women.” She looked down.

He brushed his chin against the top of her head. “Ollie was a selfish dick,” he said. “And lousy in bed.” He closed his eyes. “I’m glad you didn’t know him.”

“He wouldn’t have liked me anyway,” Felicity said, and Oliver stiffened.

“What do you mean?” he asked.

She sighed. “Most men don’t really like smart women. Particularly frat guys and party boys.”

Oliver frowned. “I’ve never understood that.”

Felicity rolled to her side away from him. “Oh, come on. I’m sure you had exactly zero deep conversations with all the women you slept with at your four colleges.”  

“Is it the women that bother you, or the colleges?” Oliver asked. She seemed to have a list of grievances about his sex life.

“Both!” she said. “Neither. It’s your life. You can have sex with whoever you want.”

“So?” he said. “You can too. And it’s not like I raped any of those women. They wanted to have sex with me. I wasn’t like this asshole who sprayed us.”

“I’m sure they did,” Felicity said.

“I don’t know what his problem is, anyway,” Oliver said. “Why doesn’t he just find someone the old-fashioned way: at a party or a bar?”

Felicity rolled her eyes at him. “You would say that because you’ve always been able to take your pick. You come from a prominent family. You’re rich, you’re gorgeous--”

“You think I’m gorgeous?” He tilted his head at her.

She rolled her eyes again. “Oliver.”

He put a hand up. “Humor me,” he said, his lips turning up. “How gorgeous? On a scale of one to ten?” He moved in for a kiss.

“No,” she said, pulling away. “ _On a scale of one to ten_. Like I would.”

“Seriously, though,” he said. “Why do you think this guy is doing this?”

She sighed. “Human beings are obsessed with fairness, but mostly how they can make things fairer for themselves, and not so much how good they already have it. Researchers have done plenty of studies. Did you know that children, when offered candy, will take less if they can still have more than what their friends or siblings have.”

“What?”

“They did an experiment where they offered kids the chance to have three pieces of candy or two - but the catch was that if they got three, the other person in the experiment got four. If they got two, the other person got one. Most of them picked the scenario where they got more candy than the other person, but less overall. Isn’t that crazy? We all want to get a better deal, apparently.”

“So he wants a better deal?” Oliver asked.

“He deeply resents that some men have more success with women than others,” Felicity said.  “Obviously this guy hasn’t had as much success with women as he feels he deserves.”

“So he’s gassing them into having sex with him?”

“I think he thinks he’s leveling the playing field. From his reddit posts, he’s really angry about ‘nice guys’ not having access to women,” she said.  “What’s really scary is not that he thinks this, it’s that he has such a large and receptive audience. All of these other assholes who think women should have to, I don’t know, rotate among all horny men. Do you know what these men call women who sleep with guys like you?”

“What?” Oliver asked. Guys like him - what was that supposed to mean?

“Cum dumpsters,” Felicity said and shuddered. “Like women are only good for one thing: satisfying guys like them. And if they choose not to, if women choose to sleep with whomever they want, they’re just objects, receptacles. _Nothing_.” She moved closer to him and ran a hand up his thigh. His cock twitched back to life. His refractory period had been minutes since he’d been sprayed by Red Beard.

Oliver frowned, but didn’t say anything. Felicity really loathed this guy, and with good reason, but it was safer for him to let her to supply the commentary.

“If I want to have sex with someone, I can,” Felicity said. She slipped a leg over his and pulled herself up on his chest. “There’s nothing wrong with sleeping with someone who’s rich. Or good looking.” She grabbed another condom from the bedside table and ripped open the package.

“I agree,” Oliver said. “Nothing.”

She put her mouth on his abs and kissed her way up his chest, then dug her thumbs into the ridges of his hips as she raised herself up on her knees. “You,” she said, “shhh.”

She rolled the condom on him and then lowered herself onto his cock. She was wet and warm, and he closed his eyes and savored the feeling of being encompassed by her. Controlled. She began to move on top of him, rolling her hips. He put his arms out to his sides and focused on her rhythm. He wasn’t in any hurry for her to work out this frustration.

“You know, I don’t really like being your secretary,” she said, riding harder. “Executive assistant - whatever.”

He opened his eyes. “You don’t,” he said.

Her jaw had a fierce set to it. “It’s not the job,” she said leaning forward. She bit his nipple hard, and he moved his hands up to hold her waist. “Well, it’s partly the job. I don’t have a business background, and I didn’t go to school for this. It’s challenging, I’ll give you that. There are always a lot of balls in the air at QC. I like tech, though, and I like working independently.”

“I didn’t mean for it to be forever,” Oliver said, gritting his teeth because closing his eyes might seem like he was ignoring what was clearly a sore point with her. “Obviously, you’re meant for great things.”

She raised her head and slowed her pace. “Obviously?”

“Felicity, you’re the smartest person I’ve ever met,” he said. He traced his thumb over one of her nipples. “You’re going to set this world on fire.”

“Everyone at QC thinks I’m your sex toy,” she said, grinning as she began moving again, faster this time.

“We could tell them I’m your sex toy,” he said, breathing harder. “No one thinks _I’m_ the brains of QC.” He rolled onto his shoulder and pulled her to the side and underneath him, shoving into her once, hard. Her mouth formed an O shape, and her eyes went wide. She twined her legs around his back and squeezed her thighs tightly around his abdomen.

“Seriously, though,” Oliver said. “if you don’t want to do this, I can get HR to send someone else up. We can transfer you over to wherever you want. Applied Sciences. Back to IT. Whatever. You can help the team at night like you used to. We can figure it out somehow.”

She didn’t say anything, and he moved his hand down to her clit and rubbed it as he pushed her hips into the mattress. She bit down hard on her lip and closed her eyes, and he felt her muscles clenching him hard. She panted and then groaned deeply and went still. He pushed one of her knees to her chest and shifted the angle. Her eyes went wide, she came to life again, and he fucked her through another orgasm nice and slow.

“I don’t relish people saying I got a choice position on my back,” she said. “That’s not fair.”

He thrust into her harder and faster until he felt the warmth and the pressure at the base of his cock building, and he knew he was going to go into freefall in just a second.

“All evidence to the contrary,” she said and smiled beatifically up at him. And there - _there_ \- it was, the bright spark of pleasure. It burst into being in his mind and his cock at the same time and he pushed into her again and again chasing it rather desperately as it fled away.

He collapsed on his side, breathing heavily, thinking he must be losing his touch, because all he wanted to do now was pull her into him and cuddle her all night long. He nuzzled her neck. “You’re so smart,” he said. “And gorgeous. Scale of one to ten? Fifteen. Do what you want, Felicity. Don’t let me or anyone else’s judgments hold you back.”

She squeezed her legs around him one more time and ran her nails over his back. “Can you get HR to send you an old woman? Or maybe a guy?” Then she smiled. “Nevermind, for now I think this is where I’m needed,” she said. “For the team.”

She lifted her head up and kissed him slowly and thoroughly, exploring his mouth with her small tongue. He closed his eyes hard and savored her sweet cherry taste as he faded quickly into sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The tricky part of this chapter for me was sex from the male POV, particularly since S2 Oliver was kind of feral and very compartmentalized. Thanks to [lerayon](http://archiveofourown.org/users/lerayon/pseuds/lerayon) for reading through the first part and offering assistance.


	8. Braving Dragons

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Felicity goes to visit Moira in Iron Heights, and Oliver has a discussion about Sara with Laurel. Later the two of them talk over what they've learned.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was a bear. It started off as a lark because I was writing Moira and I adore Moira as a character, and it wound up being nearly 6K words exploring the idea of forgiveness and what we must do to achieve it. Which is perhaps odd in a sex pollen fic. 
> 
> Many thanks to [TheLockPickingVictorian](http://archiveofourown.org/users/TheLockPickingVictorian/pseuds/TheLockPickingVictorian), [lerayon](http://archiveofourown.org/users/lerayon/pseuds/lerayon), [bushlaboo](http://archiveofourown.org/users/bushlaboo/pseuds/bushlaboo), and [the-silverforked-sky](https://archiveofourown.org/users/this_empty_room/pseuds/this_empty_room/works) for reading drafts of this chapter over and offering me good advice on how to improve it. 
> 
> Several years ago I did some studying on Judaism and Jewish history, and the [Jewish conception of repentance](http://www.js.emory.edu/BLUMENTHAL/Repentance.html) and what it takes to make things right struck a real chord with me. I incorporated that into Felicity's POV here, and I hope I did it justice. You can tell me.
> 
> Or not. 
> 
> I dedicate this chapter to SweetAnise for the wonderful, detailed comment she left on the last chapter of this fic and other things I've written as well. 
> 
> As always, thank you for reading.

The new vigilante in town was Sara Lance. Of course it was, Felicity thought. It would have to be a beautiful woman who had a sordid history with Oliver and his ethical and emotional well being - because that is exactly what they needed to throw into the mix _right now_.

Felicity didn’t have a gripe with Sara Lance, but she was tired of the Lance sisters’ effect on Oliver. Laurel had only just stopped using all of Starling City’s resources in gunning for the Hood. She’d blamed everyone but herself for Tommy’s death in the Glades the night of the Undertaking - the night Tommy had come _to rescue Laurel_ because she’d been too stubborn to leave despite being warned of the danger. Felicity guessed she could understand staying in the Glades to help the city - she’d made the same call - although saving CNRI paperwork was not the same as saving lives.

It wasn’t that Tommy’s death was Laurel’s fault, but it certainly wasn’t _the Arrow’s_ fault.

The uncomfortable truth was that Sara’s reappearance forced Felicity to think about what Ollie Queen had done and how unbelievably gross it was. She knew he wasn’t that guy anymore. She knew that he spent night after night in Starling City trying to be the exact opposite of him, but the fact remained that he _had been_ that guy - the guy who slept with his girlfriend’s sister behind her back. Felicity was sleeping with the guy who’d been that guy. It made a bunch of red flags fly up poles in her head and wave about.

Why was she sleeping with Oliver, again? She needed to stop sleeping with Oliver.

She didn’t have time to obsess about how this was all going to blow up in her face right now, though. She had to see Moira, and visiting hours were only between 1:30 and 3:45 PM. It would seem a little odd, her ducking out of Queen Consolidated in the middle of the morning, so she’d invented a doctor’s appointment and then sort of faked symptoms for an illness that was unpleasant but neither serious nor contagious. Oliver had just waved her off at the first mention of a doctor and had asked no questions.

The prison visit was necessary because she’d hit dead ends everywhere else. Isabel’s history didn’t seem suspicious at first glance. Felicity had prepared a dossier on her for Oliver to look at when he’d returned from the island, and it seemed straightforward: with a successful university career behind her, an ambitious Isabel was taking a baseball bat to the corporate glass ceiling. The problem with it was that it was two dimensional. The story had no depth. Isabel had once worked for Queen Consolidated, even, but her HR files were more sterile than a surgical ward. Who was Isabel, and what was her personal agenda?

Walter had not been forthcoming either. “You must speak to Mrs. Queen,” he told Felicity over the phone. “She can choose whether to disclose the details or not. I once made the mistake of talking about family business to an associate - I told a story about the family dog. I’ll not chance it again.”

“But she’s in prison, Mr. Steele,” Felicity said, “and not likely to get out...any time soon.” Or ever, she thought. Moira had conspired to kill 503 people and confessed to it in front of a live audience and TV cameras. Surely the outcome was predetermined.

“Walter,” he said. “And this is Moira Dearden Queen we’re talking about. Don’t count her out of the game yet.”

So Felicity had no choice but to brave the dragon in her lair. She drove home and changed into her dove gray suit and pink silk blouse. Gray wasn’t her favorite color, but wool lent gravitas. The pink was lovely next to her skin, and the pussybow collar called attention to her long neck. That’s what the salesgirl had said, anyway, when Felicity had gone looking for an interview outfit in Boston.

She had already arranged her hair into a smooth French twist, but now she removed her industrial piercing and added the Tahitian pearl earrings her mother had given to her as a graduation present. No doubt Moira had entire caskets of natural pearls in the Queen mansion, but today she’d be wearing prison orange, so they’d be on more even footing. Felicity took out a pink matte lipstick and refreshed her makeup.

The drive to Iron Heights was long, and when she finally got there she felt disheveled again. Moira entered the room almost casually, as if the grim cement walls, the mesh screens, and the scrubbed metal table of the visiting room were beneath her notice. She wasn’t wearing orange either, but rather a gray jumpsuit that was only about two shades darker than Felicity’s suit. Felicity held Moira’s inquiring gaze, but she clutched her tablet and stylus tightly to her stomach.

“Ms. Smoak,” Moira said, gesturing to the chair. “Please sit down. Is anything wrong? How is Oliver?”

Felicity licked her lips and hung her purse on the back of the chair. “Oh, no - nothing’s wrong,” she said. The legs of the metal chair squeaked loudly against the concrete when she pulled it away from the table. “Well, not urgently anyway. I did come to see you about Oliver.”

A crease appeared between Moira’s eyebrows. “You are his executive assistant now, is that correct?”

“Yes, that’s right,” Felicity said. “I have been since he returned and began working at QC.”

“Your training is in technology,” Moira said, “if I remember correctly. Why would Oliver choose you for his secretary?” The look on her face said she had her suspicions, but she would wait for Felicity to confirm them.

Felicity weighed her words carefully. “Oliver needed some help putting himself back together last year,” she said, “and John Diggle and I were the ones he eventually accepted it from. He trusts me, so that’s why he transferred me to work for him directly when he became CEO.”

“He trusts you?”

“Yes, he does,” Felicity said.  “We’re not together, of course. We’re just friends,” she rushed to clarify.

“Oliver doesn’t really have women _friends_ ,” Moira said. “He’s had girlfriends and more... _transient_ women. None of those relationships have lasted. If I were you, I wouldn’t make long-term plans.”

Felicity felt her mouth drop open.

“My son has many good qualities, but long-term fidelity to women isn’t one of them,” Moira said. “He’s a complex person.”

Felicity swallowed. “Yes, he is,” she said. “He is complicated. He’s also intelligent, good-hearted, and generous. And, no, I don’t mean generous in the gold-digging way. I mean, no matter what mistakes you make,” she paused to look around the room and then pointedly at Moira, “he forgives and moves on. Without you even asking for it.”

Moira looked taken aback, but Felicity plowed on. “When Mr. Diggle and I went to get him on the island, he was not in good shape--”

“Wait,” Moira said, “You and Mr. Diggle went to get him on the island? What island?”

“Lian Yu,” Felicity said. “That’s where he went after the quake that destroyed the Glades. He was gone for five months. You didn’t know?”

“He told me he’d been in Europe,” Moira said. “I didn’t know for exactly how long.”

Felicity released her grip on her tablet and set it carefully on the table in front of her. “I suppose you wouldn’t be in a position to keep tabs on him, given everything that...happened.”

A glint of amusement appeared in Moira’s eyes. “Yes,” she said. “Well, as you see, I’ve been distracted by other concerns.”

Felicity nodded. “He disappeared after Tommy’s funeral, and it took me quite awhile to track him down. Given all of the terrible things that happened on that island, I didn’t think he’d ever go back, but I suppose that’s where he’s most used to feeling grief and guilt.”

“Guilt?” Moira asked.

“Because of Tommy and everyone else who died. Because he couldn’t save them and because you--” She shut her mouth tightly and bit her lip.

“Because I was involved,” Moira said.

“Yes,” Felicity said. “I assumed he’d take a short break and then return, but after months went by, I realized he wasn’t going to. When the Queen Consolidated takeover rumors arose, we decided to track him down.” She folded her hands on the table. “I was also concerned about Thea and thought you might need Oliver during your trial.”

Moira stilled. “What about Thea?” she asked. “Is something wrong? She was here last week and seemed fine.”

“As far as I know, she’s okay,” Felicity said. “She’s busy. She’s running Verdant and doing a good job of it. But with her brother gone, her mother here, her family’s company failing, and the Queen name all over the news, I thought…”

Moira sat back in her chair and crossed her legs. “You flew to the North China Sea? To bring back my son for his family and the company?”

“Mr. Diggle and I did.”

Moira gave her a speculative look that Felicity had a hard time reading. “And how _is_ Oliver doing now?”

“Well, he’s struggling some,” Felicity said. The way Moira was tapping her fingertips against the table made her nervous. What was it Walter had said about outsiders’ access to information on the Queen family? She rolled the stylus in her hands. “He doesn’t really care about the money or the profit angle of Queen Consolidated. I’m not sure he’s really cutthroat enough for the the job.” She felt her lips pull at the irony of that. “Oliver is good at putting on a face and being who he has to be in the moment, but the day to day responsibilities of running a corporation? He’s very smart - don’t get me wrong - but he doesn’t care about those kinds of details.”

“I see,” Moira said. “If you don’t think he’s suited to running the family company, what would you like to see him doing instead?” She smiled coldly.

“I think...I think that his life has been hard enough, and it would be nice if he could do something that would give him some joy and satisfaction.” Felicity realized those words had actually tripped out of her mouth and right into this conversation, and she pressed her lips together. “I wouldn’t, of course, presume to advise him.” She stared at the malformations in the concrete behind Moira’s head. They made a little pattern that looked almost like a campfire.

“Since you have Oliver figured out,” Moira said, “why come to see me?”

“Because of Isabel Rochev,” Felicity said.

“Isabel Rochev?” Moira stiffened and froze. “Is she back in Starling City?”

“She’s behind the hostile takeover of Queen Consolidated,” Felicity said. “I thought you knew. Well, she’s the public face of it, anyway. She was Vice President of Acquisitions at Stellmoor International.”

Moira’s face paled. “I-I’m afraid I didn’t know. I’ve been too preoccupied with my own problems.  No, that isn’t a good thing.”

“I’ve done my own research on Ms. Rochev,” Felicity said, “but I keep running into large gaps that seem suspicious. She also seems to really enjoy humiliating Oliver for some reason. I asked Mr. Steele, and he said I must talk to you. That it was Queen family business.”

“Walter would say that,” Moira said with a slight roll of her eyes. “Listen, Isabel hates this family. She has her reasons, but she cannot be allowed to attack it further. She’s brilliant, and she’s good at stealth attacks. You need to convince Oliver to be wary of her and to pay attention to what she does. There’s a private investigator I use sometimes. His name is Hank Dolworth. He’s rough, but he’ll run anything to ground. If Isabel is connected to anything larger and more powerful, he’ll be able to find out. I would assume this is a personal vendetta, but you never know.”

Moira put a hand out on the table. “I appreciate you coming to tell me this, Ms. Smoak. I want to keep my children safe. It’s all I’ve ever wanted. Please continue to keep me apprised of what is happening. In fact,” she paused and lowered her gaze, “If you came back again, I would find that very...helpful. Oliver tells me about Thea and Thea tells me about Oliver, but neither of them tells me what is really going on.” She smiled ruefully. “I suppose I should be grateful they are still willing to talk to me at all.”

This an astonishing admission from Moira, Felicity knew. With her slumped shoulders, in the dim light of the prison room, she looked almost vulnerable. Then, before Felicity could fill the uncomfortable silence with whatever assurance came to mind, Moira rallied. She straightened and lifted her chin.

“Is that all you have for me today?” she asked. “I’m afraid my time is up. They have me on a tight schedule here. Please give my regards to Oliver and Thea - if you decide to tell them about this meeting.” With brief nod and a satisfied smile, Moira stood and walked to the far door, and before Felicity could let out her held breath, she was gone.

 

>>\--->

 

Oliver knocked on the door to Laurel’s apartment, holding the bag of Thai food in front of him like an offering. He hadn’t been able to get the sorrow he’d seen in Sara’s eyes out of his head for days now. What had she said when he asked her who she was? “Once you know, your life will never be the same.” That wasn’t precisely true. It wasn’t the knowledge that Sara was alive and in Starling City that bothered him. He was glad she hadn’t died - although he wasn’t sure she was. This was not the laughing, reckless Sara he’d known before the Gambit went down, and it wasn’t the sadder, but still hopeful Sara who’d been with him on the island. This was a different woman altogether.

This Sara was flirting with disaster by stalking her family, but never making contact. He couldn’t help but think she wanted them to find out who she was - again. This time, though, Oliver didn’t want to get caught knowing about Sara but not saying anything. It had taken him an entire year to get to the point where neither Lance nor Laurel was actively loathing Oliver Queen or the Vigilante. This new turn of events with Sara felt like another inevitable crash course with the Lance family’s suffering, and he wanted to avoid as much of that as possible. He had already hurt them enough already.

Laurel answered, obviously caught off guard to see him. He supposed he should have called first.

“Ollie,” she said. “What a _surprise_.”

“Sorry,” he said. “I was in the neighborhood picking up some food, and I remembered you liked this too.” He held up the bag.

A crease appeared in between her eyebrows, but Laurel stepped back to allow him inside. He put the bag on the table in her dining area, and scanned her face again. “Are you sure this is okay? Because I could go if you’d rather be alone.”

Laurel smiled. “No, it’s okay. As long as you’re not here to read me the riot act again about my drinking. I’m hungry anyway, and that smells delicious. Thai?”

Oliver nodded. “Yep. I can’t order it in at the office because Felicity is allergic to nuts, but she was gone today, so…”

Laurel pulled out a chair and gestured to him to do the same, and, out of habit, he took the chair that faced her door and began pulling out the little takeout boxes. “Do you have any plates?”

“Yes,” she said, and went into the kitchen. “Here, I’ll get some wine too.”

“Oh, no problem,” Oliver said, wondering how much booze she had stored away here exactly. He kept his mouth shut, though, and she came back with plates, cutlery, and two wine glasses. She then pulled a wine bottle from a little cabinet, opened it and poured.

“So what really brings you here?” she asked as she raised her glass leisurely to her mouth and drank.

Busted. Laurel could always read his moods, at least the darker ones. She’d had enough practice. He picked up a fork and began unloading pad thai out onto his plate. “I saw my mom last Thursday at Iron Heights. She has a lot of regrets about what happened with the Undertaking, and I started thinking about my own.”

Laurel raised her eyebrows but didn’t say anything.

“I wanted…” Oliver licked his lips. “I wanted to make sure you knew that Sara… Sara, she loved you.” He twirled the rice noodles around his fork and then let them drop back on the plate. “What we did - it was awful, but Sara didn’t go off with me because she hated you.”

“Why did she do it, then?”

“I think,” Oliver put a hand on his chin and rubbed. This was wading into dangerous territory. “I think she wanted me because I was _your_ boyfriend. She felt she didn’t measure up to her older sister.”

Laurel looked thoughtful. “She slept with you to compete with me?” She gave a bitter laugh and took another deep drink of her wine. “Well, what’s the verdict?”

Oliver frowned and twirled his pad thai noodles again. “What’s the verdict on what?”

“Who was better in bed? Sara or me? Tell me the truth. Don’t worry about sparing my feelings. Wait, I don’t have to say that. This is you.”

“Laurel,” Oliver said.

“Don’t ‘Laurel’ me,” she said, slamming her glass down on the table. The wine sloshed out of it and spilled red on the white tablecloth. “I’ve waited six years to learn this, so spill it.”

Oliver held his fork out in front of him. “No.”

“No?”

He tilted his head and studied her. The color in her face was rising as the wine in her glass disappeared. “I’m not going there. It’s hardly appropriate.”

“It’s hardly _appropriate_.” Laurel laughed. “Appropriate. That’s rich. Okay, then, why’d _you_ do it?”

Oliver sat back in his chair and turned the fork over in his hand. He pushed the tines into the soft flesh of his palm. How had this conversation gone from being about Sara’s love for Laurel to this so quickly? “You remember how my parents were, right? With us, with each other?”

Laurel leaned forward and wrapped noodles around her fork. “Yeah, I remember.” She took a bite and closed her eyes.

“My dad was always the fun parent. He’d take us to baseball games and sailing, but Mom was the one who kept track of how we were doing in school and made us write thank you notes after birthdays and Christmas?” He put a hand on the table and ran it over the stain. “When I’d get into arguments with my mom, my dad would always tell me, ‘Don’t talk to your mother that way. You need to respect your mother.’ Which was ironic because, you know, if he’d respected her, he probably wouldn’t have been out fucking other women.” Oliver realized what he’d just said and closed his eyes. “Sorry.”

“No, I agree,” Laurel said with a tiny smile. “It’s a good point.”

“I just… I didn’t want to get married,” he said. “The idea of settling down and getting a house, making a real commitment - when I thought about it I felt like I couldn’t breathe. I knew you wanted all of those things, and I didn’t know how to make you understand or accept that I didn’t.”

Laurel’s fingers tightened around her wine glass. “Didn’t want them, or didn’t want them with _me_?”

Oliver had a quick flash of just how suffocated he’d felt by Laurel’s excessive planning of their future, and he thought of how, even last year, he’d been working to restore that. It all seemed futile now, and not because of Tommy. He just didn’t want to be with Laurel, and deep down he never had.

“I’m sorry, Laurel,” he said. “You deserve better than me.” He traced the outline of the wine stain again and again with his thumb. “And maybe Sara and I didn’t or don’t deserve your forgiveness, but I know she loved you. That’s what I came here to tell you.”

“I don’t know what to do with that, Ollie,” Laurel said. “She’s dead, and you never really loved me.” Tears formed in her eyes, and she swiped at them. “The only thing I could do was hate what the two of you did, and now you want that too. Well, you can’t have it. Maybe I can’t hate you anymore, but I’m going to die hating that you screwed my sister behind my back, and that she picked that over us. It was horrible, and--” She grabbed for her glass. “Look, can you just go? I don’t want to pick the scabs off all of my emotional wounds tonight. I’ve got to deal with your mother’s case, and that’s bad enough. I sometimes wish I’d never met any of you Queens.”

Oliver got up from his. “Yeah, okay,” he said. “I’m sorry, Laurel. I’m just... I’m sorry. I’ll leave.” Her face was now red, splotchy, and covered with tears, and the bottle was nearly empty. Why had he thought coming here was a good idea? Because he was an idiot.

He turned toward the door and fled.

 

>>\--->

 

Felicity climbed the stairs to her apartment and put her key in the door. She was exhausted after her talk with Moira and the long drive back, and she hoped no one expected her at QC tonight. She was going to get out of these heels and this suit, take a long bath, and go to bed early.

She pushed the door open, flipped on the light, and dropped her purse on the table by the couch. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Oliver sitting with his head down at her kitchen table. She gasped, and put a hand to her throat. “ _What_ are you doing here?” she asked when she’d gotten her breath back.

Oliver looked up, his gaze following the slow movement of his head, and Felicity saw Moira in his expression for the first time. They both wore regret so elegantly. She could see how heavy it dragged on him by how bent his shoulders were, though. What had happened today?   

She cleared her throat. “I mean, why are you here? Is something wrong?”

“No,” Oliver said, sitting up straighter. “Nothing new, anyway. I talked to Sara again. She was at the hospital.”

“The hospital?”

“Didn’t you see the news? The mayor’s men opened fire on the people at the 'Cash for Guns' buy-back, and one of Sara’s friends was shot. Sara helped me take down the Mayor. Where were you all day?”

“Out,” Felicity said. “I told you I had a doctor’s appointment.”

Oliver gave her a bland look. “Did you get my messages?”

“I did, yes,” she said, swallowing, “but it looked like you had this in hand. There weren’t any emergencies at QC today, right?”

“No, no emergencies. You can take a day off if you need one, Felicity.”

“I know,” she said. “I know I can.”

“You’re dressed very formally for the doctor,” he said. “Not that I’m complaining.” He stood,  walked over to her, and put a hand on the top button of her suit, unbuttoning it. “The sexy librarian is one of my favorite looks.”

“Really?” she asked, swallowing again. “I wouldn’t have thought that.”

“Oh, yes,” he said. “It’s much better than the sexy schoolgirl outfit you wore to to catch Red Beard.” He undid another button.

“Well, the schoolgirl look is gross. I burned those clothes.”

“You did?” He looked surprised.

“No, I don’t have a fireplace or anything. I just threw them out.” His fingers were on the fourth button by now, and she put her hand over his. “Do you think this is a good idea? You seem...upset.”

“I think this is going to be the best thing I do all day,” he said, “and I stopped a gang from getting an illegal shipment of grenade launchers earlier tonight.”

“But were you triggered?”

His gaze slid away. “In a way,” he said.

“In a way?”

He flipped the last button through its hole and tugged the suit coat off of her shoulders. “Let’s not talk,” he said and leaned down to kiss her.

His lips were much more persuasive kissing. Then he had his hands on the button at the back of her skirt. She felt it loosen and slide to the floor, and his fingers raked her underwear down in one movement. By then the aphrodisiac in her blood stream must have kicked in because all she wanted was him naked and inside her now. “Bed,” she said. He lifted her up and she wrapped her legs around his waist so he could get them to her room faster. She bent her head to suck on the hollow in his throat. It was so sexy. Did he have to be _so_ sexy? Her fingers tugged the ends of his shirt from his jeans and she ran her hands up his chest, and clutched his muscles. He smelled sweaty and dark and exciting. She was going to regret this, but she’d do it anyway, so she might as well enjoy it.

They fell on the bed together, and he pulled off his jeans and threw them on the floor. He slid his hand over her stomach and lower towards her clit, and she pushed it away. “Don’t need it. Just kiss my neck.” He complied and she groaned. “That’s good. That’s so good. Ohh, your stubble is--” She felt his cock in his boxer briefs wedge itself between her legs, and she pressed herself against it, flung a leg over him and rode it. She leaned back and stretched an arm towards the night table, opening it. “Get a condom. Hurry.”

“‘Kay,” he said, and she heard the foil packet rip. In another minute his underwear was off, and he was pushing inside her. She closed her eyes and let him do all the work. He sucked her nipple through the silk, and his hand wandered back over to caress her. This time she let him. He was good at it, and the room was so dark.

She heard their flesh slap together over and over again and the headboard tapping against the wall. He arched his hips higher, and his thrusts lifted her ass off the mattress and forced her legs farther apart. “Yes, yes,” she panted as she felt his cock hit something inside her just right. There it was, there it _was_. She felt her release flow through her body as she clenched him tightly. It took its sweet time, and she reveled in it, grinding her hips into the mattress and forcing him to thrust down. She hoped he wouldn’t finish right away because she needed the exercise and in her present state she could probably come about five or nine more times. Win-win.

“I like this,” she said, smiling and arching her back.

“Good,” he said and pushed one of her legs up against her chest. His angle inside her shifted in the best way, and she closed her eyes and left everything up to him. He knew how to complete a mission. He was, after all, a very capable man. 

 

 

>>\--->

 

“I went to go see your mother.” The words were out of her mouth almost as Felicity thought them. Oliver’s weight pinned her to the mattress, so she reached up and pushed his shoulder, and he rolled on his back. She followed through on that movement, half climbing on his chest and easing a leg between his. “And I told her you were on Lian Yu again.”

“You did?” Oliver’s eyes were closed, and his body had been entirely relaxed, but she felt a bit of the tension return. “What for?”

“Isabel is a shark.”

“Yeah,” he said. “I knew that.” She heard the laugh buried in the words.

“I don’t think you’re taking her seriously enough because she’s so...gorgeous,” Felicity said and then bit down on her tongue. Goddamn oxytocin.

Oliver opened one eye. “Because she’s so gorgeous?” he said. His lips quirked in one corner and one of his hands moved to cup her waist.

“I’m not jealous,” Felicity said. “I’m concerned for Queen Consolidated and the Queens’ other holdings.”

“The Queens’ other holdings,” Oliver said and grinned. “Like what I’m holding now?”

Felicity buried her face in his chest. “No,” she said. “This isn’t about me. Look, I know you’re not going to take me seriously because of what we just did.”

“What we just did,” Oliver said. “What did we just do? Oh, you mean how I just made you scream my name and pass out?”

“I didn’t pass out,” she said.

“You screamed my name, though. Like ten times. The people in the apartment next door might have some suspicion by now that someone named Oliver is here.”

Felicity pulled her head up from his chest and poked his shoulder. “Stop.”

Oliver winced dramatically. “Stop?”

“Yes,” she said, “stop.”

“That’s not what you said before.” The grin now stretched across his entire face. “I think it was more like ‘Don’t ever stop.’”

“Are you finished?” she asked. “I didn’t have to tell you about Moira.”

“Hmm,” he said. “Yes, why did you go see her?”

“I’m worried about you,” Felicity said. “You know, I think she needs to know what’s going on with you too. She wasn’t so frightening at the end.”

Oliver pressed a kiss against her temple. “You don’t have to worry about me, but you’re probably right about my mother. She needs to focus on something besides the D.A. seeking the death penalty against her.”

“I don’t need to worry about you?” she asked. “You didn’t see your own face when you were talking about Sara.”

Oliver’s smile collapsed and he turned his head away. “I went to see Laurel,” he said after a long moment.

“What?”

“I went to see Laurel before I came here. Sara is wracked with guilt over what we did, and she’s struggling because she can’t fix it. I went over there to tell Laurel that Sara...even though she...even though we...”

Felicity put a hand up to his cheek. And people thought this man was a heartless killer. “Oh, Oliver,” she said.

He kept his gaze on the dark ceiling. “Do you think we can ever make up for the things we did before?” he asked.

The question obviously came from a very troubled place inside him, and the answer was so complex and variable that she chose to let the silence stretch out between them and rubbed his cheek instead.

“Do you?” he asked again after a long moment had passed.

“I look at it differently than a lot of people do,” Felicity finally said. “Most people think that if you wrong someone and are truly sorry about it, you can be forgiven. That people have to forgive you. But for Jews it’s more about making things right again. That’s why murder is such a serious crime. You can return something you stole, but you can’t bring anyone back to life. Once it’s done it’s done.

“I had to think this over before Dig and I went to bring you back from Lian Yu. The city has been up in arms over the actions of the Vigilante for a year now. Some people think he’s a hero and some think he’s just another killer. It’s an arrogant choice to become someone’s judge, jury, and executioner, and now I’m part of that too.”

“Then why have you helped me?” he asked.

“Because you’ve never done this for yourself. It costs you. I’ve seen what it does to you. And because the people you are bringing down are outside the reach of justice. They won’t be punished for what they do, and the fact that they can’t be punished only makes them worse. They’re predators. They hurt innocent people all the time.

“I don’t care about the welfare of predators,” she said, clenching her jaw. “Look at the Dollmaker. He killed a lot of young women before Lance caught him, and the first thing he did when he escaped from prison was to kill more. If they’d executed him after they found him guilty, there would be women walking around with their whole lives ahead of them now and families who wouldn’t have to bear the grief of what he did to their daughters.” She pulled herself up on his chest and looked into his eyes. “I wasn’t sad when Sara killed him. I was glad. No one else has to be afraid of being suffocated to death by hot plastic. You do the same thing with these other scumbags. And it’s not just taking these monsters down, it’s living with being the one who took them down. Those people you killed last year? Everyone’s glad they’re gone, but no one wanted to do the dirty work. You were willing to.”

“But I’m not killing anymore,” Oliver said. “I can’t. Tommy--”

“It doesn’t matter, Oliver,” Felicity said. “You’re still trying to make things better. I know you have things in your past that you regret, probably a number of things you can’t go back and make right. But you’re making things right for other people. All of us have to go to our deaths wondering whether the world is better or worse off because we lived. Your ledger has some higher level math, that’s all.” She laid her head down on his chest and nuzzled her nose into the smattering of hair there. He smelled so good.

He was silent for a long time, and her body relaxed so deeply into him she was almost asleep when she heard his next words. “So you don’t think we can find forgiveness?” he asked.

“We can always hope,” she said, reaching up to touch his face. Above the harsher bristle of his chin, it was slightly damp, and as much as she wanted Laurel out of his life, Felicity wished she were here to feel this. There was nothing sadder on this earth than this man’s remorse. In that moment she felt sure of that.

Oliver’s phone rang in his jeans’ pocket, and he eased himself out from underneath to grab it. “It’s Dig,” he said. “There’s been another rape. Two actually tonight. Which means we have a copycat?”

Felicity’s blood ran cold. This was what she’d been afraid of all along: the only way these crimes could get exponentially worse. “Not a copycat,” she said. “A buyer.” She sat up in bed, no longer tired. “No rest for the wicked,” she said. “Let’s get to work.”


	9. The First in a Series of Mistakes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The newest rape sheds some light on the case, and Felicity wonders if she might be pregnant.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> These chapters keep getting longer. The reporter guy who you always see on Arrow does not have a name, only a varying title: "TV Newscaster" or "Reporter." The actor's name is Marrett Green, so I modified that here to give him credit. I like TV Reporter Guy. 
> 
> There's also an Easter egg from Veronica Mars in this chapter. 
> 
> I dedicate this chapter to OlicityDreams who seems to be a bit concerned about where this is all going with Oliver and Felicity. Thanks for reading!

Oliver left immediately, and Felicity lingered only to space out their arrivals at the lair. She used the time to put herself back together, but she went with the more comfortable version of yoga pants and a long sleeved MGM Grand t-shirt rather than something more fashionable. She’d spent the entire day uncomfortable, and she wasn’t going to keep that going. She really needed a shower because she smelled like Oliver now, but she didn’t have time. Dig probably wouldn’t notice, and Oliver… Well, who knew with Oliver?

When she got to the lair, she found the two of the watching a news report online. “What’s going on?” she asked.

“Two rapes were reported tonight, and there’s a vigil in front of the Starling City Police Department. The mother of the second victim organized it,” Dig said.

“Do we know who the victims are?” Felicity asked.

“Not the first one,” Oliver said. “Police aren’t releasing the names.”

Felicity nodded. “Like with the others. But the second?”

“The victim’s mother’s name is Shelley Ladd,” Dig said. “I put her name into your database, and she only has one daughter - Morgan Ladd. She’s 21 and goes to Starling University. She’s an art major set to graduate this spring.”

Felicity sat down at her computers to type, but the news reporter came on, diverting her attention.

“This is Marrick Greene with WEBG Starling City 7, and I’m live at the Starling City Metro with the mother of a girl who claims she was attacked by the Starling City Rapist. This is Shelley Ladd, the alleged victim’s mother.”

Mrs. Ladd looked like she did not appreciate the “alleged” descriptor very much. She was a tall woman with hair dyed an improbable shade of red. She was wearing a puffy pink winter coat that brought out the blotchiness of her skin. She’d clearly been crying. “Thank you, Mr. Greene,” she said stiffly.

“We haven’t heard very much about the other victims from the police,” Marrick said. “The only information we have on them is what has been posted online. What made you come forward with your story?”

Mrs. Ladd sucked in a breath. “I think the women of this city are tired of walking on eggshells wondering if the next time they go out to socialize they’ll be sprayed and raped,” she said. “I respect the privacy of the other families, but so far 22 other girls have been raped, and we’ve had no assurances that anything at all is being done about it.

“My daughter was questioned for hours. She named her attacker, and the police have brought him in, but during that time another picture was posted to that reddit account.” She swiped her hand across her cheek. “This man, this _sadist_ \- the police are refusing to charge him, saying they don’t have enough evidence that a crime has been committed. How can that happen when there are so many other victims? Where is the justice for our girls?”

The crowd stirred behind her and a couple of people waved signs that said, “Don’t Tell Women Not To Get Raped, Tell Men Not To Rape” and “Real Men Don’t Rape.”

Something about Mrs. Ladd’s explanation felt off, so Felicity began hacking her way into the S.C.P.D. database. By now it was like opening a Diet Coke. She sorted through recent violent crimes.

“Anything?” Dig asked.

“Morgan Ladd’s rape is the only sexual assault reported in the past 24 hours.” She flipped over to the YouWAN2’s reddit page. “There are 21 different pictures now. This newest one has a dangling heart belly ring. Red Beard (or whoever) had marked her with: “BEG ME SOME MORE AND MAYBE I WILL.” Felicity tasted the granola bar she’d eaten in her Mini Cooper on the way over again. It was less delicious combined with her stomach acid.

“So the picture that was posted on reddit was not of your daughter?” Merrick asked Mrs. Ladd.

“No,” she said, “but she woke up alone in a motel room like the other girls, not remembering what had happened. She didn’t have anything written on her, though.”

“New M.O.,” Oliver muttered.

Marrick Greene looked confused. “How does she know she’s one of this attacker’s victims, then?” he asked, frowning. “Couldn’t this be just another case of a girl being roofied?” He seemed to realize he was still on camera as his eyes widened and he followed up with, “Not that that’s not a serious crime. How did your daughter identify her attacker if she couldn’t remember anything?”

Mrs. Ladd glared at him. “Her friends saw her talking to this man a few minutes before she disappeared. He has been stalking my daughter for years, but she’s never given him any reason to think she liked him. Apparently he went up to her tonight at a Pi Sigma Sigma party.” The camera made a lingering sweep over Shelley Ladd’s angry face, and WEBG went to a commercial break.

“A fraternity party,” Diggle said. “Not a bar.”

Oliver looked over at Felicity and raised his eyebrows. She clicked further into Morgan’s file. “Morgan stated that her attacker was a Seth Bomer.” She did a quick search for Bomer on another computer, came up with his social security number after a minute and went through the list of records available for him.

“Seth Bomer’s a graduate student in chemical engineering at Starling U. Morgan Ladd made a complaint about him to the university last semester. She said he’s been in the same classes as her every semester, and he sits and stares at her. She asked that he not be allowed to register for any of her scheduled classes.” She searched S.C.P.D. records. “He doesn’t have an arrest record or any restraining orders against him.”

“Taking the same classes?” Oliver asked. “Maybe they just have similar interests.”

“She’s an art major with a minor in dance,” Felicity said. “He’s in Chem E. Generally there’s not a lot of overlap between the two.”

“You said you thought one of these was a buyer?” Oliver asked.

“When did you say that?” Diggle asked.

Felicity thought fast. “I’ve been thinking that we’d see a buyer one of these days ever since I saw the reddit page advertising the ‘sex elixir,’” she said.

“She’s, uh, been ranting about it,” Oliver said. “At the office.”

Diggle looked skeptical. “Uh huh,” he said. “Well, it looks like you were right. Whoever Bomer is, he’s too sloppy to be the Starling City Rapist. He knew Morgan, has a history with her, and was seen with her before she disappeared.”

“He also didn’t write on her,” Oliver said.

“He didn’t use a condom either,” Felicity said, scrolling further down the police record. “All of the other girls who have come forward showed evidence of intercourse, but no semen was left behind in any of those cases. Not only that, but they’d all been wiped down with alcohol while they were asleep, so no other bodily fluids were present either. All of them were left in high traffic motels near the university. I think we can assume so that hair and fiber evidence would be harder to use against anyone.

“Morgan woke up at the Starling City Plaza, and there were two empty champagne bottles in the suite with her.” She clicked through to the account of Bomer’s questioning. “Seth Bomer does not deny that he had sex with Morgan. He admitted it freely, but he says it was consensual. They met at Pi Sigma Sigma and the night ‘turned romantic.’ He paid for the hotel room.”

“It’s his semen?” Oliver asked.

“I think we can assume yes,” Diggle said. “Guy saw the reddit post and decided this was his chance to spend the night with the girl of his dreams.”

Felicity wrinkled her nose. “For $10K an ounce and a felony sexual assault conviction.”

“Only if they can prove it. What’s the case against him?” Diggle asked. “Did Morgan show signs of assault?”

Felicity froze. This was going to be another he said/she said case if there weren’t. Sex in an expensive plaza room with empty bottles of champagne left behind and… She went back to the Morgan’s file again and groaned. “He left roses,” she said. “With a card. And by his admission they had sex, so there’s no point in testing the semen. The lab has nothing to compare it to anyway. The only evidence will be any traces of the chemical left behind in her bloodstream, but since that chemical is unknown and unclassified, can it be considered a weapon? Is there any way to prove he used it on her and that she didn’t take it herself as a stimulant?”

She threw her hands up. “He’s going to walk, and this doesn’t even help us get the other guy.”

Oliver put up a hand. “Not necessarily,” he said. “We can look for ties to other people in the Chemistry department. And I can interrogate Boman about his purchase.”

Felicity checked the computer again. “It looks like the police will hold him for tonight anyway. They probably think he’ll give something away if they question him long enough. Since the other girl hasn’t reported her rape yet, there’s nothing more to do on this tonight.” She checked the program she had monitoring the city generally. “It looks like it’s quiet. The police have finished taking in the Mayor’s men. I say we go home.”

“Home?” Dig said. “It’s early.”

“Yes, well, I’ve already had a long--” She caught Oliver’s eye as she looked up. “I mean, I’ve done a lot of…things. Today. I’ve done a lot.”

His eyes sparked, and his mouth twitched.

“I’m tired,” She finished lamely while turning off two of the monitors. “I’m going to grab my stuff from the bathroom and then head out.”

She took off for the bathroom and safety.

 

>>\--->

 

The lair bathroom was one of the things Felicity felt truly satisfied with. Last summer she and Dig had combined some of their “severance” money and updated the basement of Verdant. Felicity had gone over and over in her mind about how she would accomplish this without revealing any Arrow secrets. Should they blindfold the workers they hired and ask them to sign confidentiality agreements? Maybe she and Dig should do all the work themselves just to be safe.

In the end, Dig had said, “We’ll just take out all of our equipment and hire the lowest bidder. Tell them we want to update Verdant’s basement for private parties. If you want, we can say it’s our own version of Fight Club. ‘The first rule of Fight Club is--”

“‘You do not talk about Fight Club,’” Felicity finished. “Very funny. Okay, but if we’re going to do this, I want a bathroom. A real bathroom. One with a shower and a long counter and storage. We spend too much time down here to traipse up to the bathrooms upstairs, and I always worry that one of these days I’ll have to pee when I’m covered in blood. That’s hard to explain to women who are clubbing.”

“A bathroom,” Dig said, his mouth twisting up in a smile. “I think we can do that.”

The result was a large room with a toilet, a counter with a double sink and boiling water on demand, a roomy shower with multiple heads, and - Felicity’s favorite - a row of lockers to keep their stuff in. She obviously didn’t have to lock anything out of the reach of these men, but she could put her feminine products away out of sight. She opened the door to her locker now and then she saw it.

Or, rather, them: two pregnancy tests she’d bought days ago when she had realized her period was late. The white sticks stared at her from the boxes’ packaging, four of them. She had grabbed two different brands in case she had to do a double check. It was humiliating enough to go to that aisle once with a big question mark in her mind, a woman who had slept with her boss and had maybe, accidentally, gotten knocked up by him.

How had this happened exactly?

Felicity hadn’t taken the tests because she was afraid she’d fail them, and then she would have to make a decision. Whatever that decision would be, it wouldn’t be fun. The last, _last_ thing she ever wanted to be was Oliver Queen’s baby mama. The tabloids, the paparazzi digging up her Vegas background and her mother - everything she’d worked so hard to achieve academically and professionally would be flushed down the toilet in one announcement.

On the other hand, she would never have another opportunity to have a baby as apple cheeked, blond, and gorgeous as Oliver Queen’s. He was a ridiculously beautiful man, obscenely so. She knew his genes would overtake hers and force their baby to be an infant supermodel ninja. How could she stand in the way of that?

Because _she wasn’t ready to be a mother_ , that’s how, let alone a single mother like her mom, right now. She wasn’t. She had to not be pregnant. Oh God, please let her not be pregnant.

Was she ready to take a test now and find out? She could close the door to the bathroom and pee on the stick here. Get it over with. She picked one of the boxes up off the shelf and looked at it. It was pink with the words First Response in a large white oval. First response sounded like an emergency, but this wasn’t an emergency, really, was it? She was just late by five or six days. It had happened before, and this time it was probably caused by stress or whatever hormones or chemicals was in the aphrodisiac Red Beard had sprayed on her. She’d half expected facing down Moira at Iron Heights would cause her to bleed from all of her orifices, but it hadn’t, damn it.

Felicity had a quick flash to the last time she’d been in this situation. She’d been in college, barely nineteen, and a week late. She’d just looked at her calendar and realized it one day, that somewhere between midterm exams and writing endless code for her senior project, she’d neglected to get her period. How negligent of her. She’d told her boyfriend Cooper and expected that he’d be cool - “Babe, whatever, we’ll get through it” - but he hadn’t. Instead he’d gone white and said, “I’m too young for my life to be over like this. You have to take care of it.”

Standing here now, clutching this pink box, she realized she hadn’t forgiven Cooper for that. She’d loved him. He’d been dead four whole years, and yet she still resented the hell out of him dumping all of the responsibility for a pregnancy on her because she was the one with the uterus.

She wasn’t ready to take this test yet.

Just then Oliver walked in. “Hey, I’ll walk you to your ca--” he said and then saw what she was holding. He tensed.

She’d noticed his body language when he was with her had gotten progressively more relaxed, but he went ramrod straight now, and the smile on his lips faded back into the shadows of his face. In a very low voice, his Arrow voice, he asked, “Is there something you haven’t told me, Felicity?”

She tossed the box back into the locker and slammed it closed. “No,” she said. “I mean, I was just… I gotta go.” She grabbed her purse from the floor and tried to brush past him, but he grabbed her upper arm. She stiffened. “Let go,” she said.

“Why were you holding a pregnancy test?” he asked, and she realized for the first time that this man she’d never been afraid of could be really scary when he wanted to be. Did he want to be? Because he was. His body hummed with tension, and his blue eyes glared down at her like interrogation lights. The man who’d laughed when she’d licked his abs one by one a few hours ago was not this man. She tried to find a vulnerable spot to focus on, but there was nothing. His chin jutted, his shoulders were back, his legs were braced.  

“That wasn’t… Um, I don’t think,” she said, her mind whirring. “Uh…”

“Do you have information I need to know?” Oliver asked. “If so, you should tell me right now.” He leaned into her and suddenly Cooper’s face was superimposed over his. She wrenched her arm away from his grasp.

“If I have something _you_ need to know, I’ll tell you. Don’t worry,” she said. “Look, this is my problem, I know. So you can stop looming and glowering. I’ll handle it.”

And before Oliver could say or do anything else, she ran out of the bathroom, up the stairs to the outside exit, and slammed it behind her.

 

>>\--->

 

Oliver used his peripheral vision to try and gauge Felicity’s mood. They’d been sitting in this meeting with Lawrence Westerby, the owner of QC’s targeted acquisition, and his lawyers for an hour, and she was getting progressively more fidgety. Normally he’d put a hand on her arm or something to reassure her the suffering was coming to an end, but she’d stiffened this morning when he’d touched her back as he held the door open for her to enter the office. Clearly today was a no touching day - which he should have been okay with since he was frustrated with her, but somehow he wasn’t. Even when he was angry, he still wanted to be touching her.

She was very touchable.

Mr. Westerby began his powerpoint presentation on AEC’s achievements in research. “There are exciting developments coming with further breakthroughs in water and soil remediation and other organic solvent initiatives,” he said. “If you’ll refer to page 18 in your packet.”

Beside him Felicity dutifully flipped through her packet.

“Westerby knows we intend to buy his company, right?” Oliver whispered.

Felicity nodded.

“Then why are we listening to this?”

“Because he built AEC with specific environmental goals in mind, and he doesn’t want to see those lost when QC buys it,” she said.

“He knows once you sell the house, you stop having a say in what color it’s painted?” Oliver stretched his arm out on the table until it was almost, but not quite, touching hers. Her hand was very small and pretty. Her fingernails were painted teal today, the color of the North China Sea in July.

“He’s telling us he doesn’t want it to be pink,” Felicity said, dropping her packet and crossing her arms against her chest. “Just listen.”

Pink. Oliver thought of the pink box Felicity had clutched in her hand last night and what exactly that meant for him and them.

Was she pregnant? He glanced at her out of the side of his eye again. She looked the same as yesterday and the day before, except more irritable. That was a side effect of pregnancy, wasn’t it? Irritability? Of course, women who got their periods could also be moody he knew, but broaching that possibility was never a good idea.

He would have to wait until she was ready to tell him what was going on.

Why wasn’t she ready to tell him what was going on? Did she think he would fire her or dump her from whatever this was? Obviously she didn’t want to be pregnant. He understood that, and he wanted the same thing. They weren’t together, and his mother was in prison. Laurel was spiraling, Sara was out wandering the streets of Starling waiting to be found out, and Felicity was his _executive assistant_. He’d only been CEO of Queen Consolidated for a few months. It would look unbelievably bad if she showed up to the Christmas party in maternity wear. He'd never be able to look Walter in the face again. 

Good Time Ollie strikes again is what everyone would be thinking, and would they be right? He hoped not.

Maybe it was his baby she didn’t want. The way she’d stormed out last night, it was like she was disgusted by him. “I’ll handle it,” she’d said. There were times when Oliver thought she was angry for being attracted to him. Angry at him or at herself? It was hard to say. Clearly, she thought he was a womanizer and a walking STD. He would really like to tell her to knock it off with that. The last woman he’d slept with before all of this had been Laurel. He’d been celibate while traveling and on the island, and he hadn’t hit the streets trying to round up women when he’d gotten back to Starling, either. It felt weird to admit it, but casual sex had lost its appeal. He wanted… Well, he didn’t know what he wanted now, but it wasn’t another awkward morning encounter with some girl he didn’t know.

Despite all of the strangeness, he kind of enjoyed what he had with Felicity now. He liked coming around to her place at night. It was cozy and colorful like her. Her coffee was terrible - way too sweet - but he drank it anyway, all of it, because he liked that she thought of him when he was out at night. He made her come too, every time. He had the bite marks to prove it. Did she think Todd in Accounting was going to do that?

These were things that he’d like to tell her, but he couldn’t seem to make himself say. He was better at doing things than talking. He turned to her. “You’re getting all of this?” he asked.

“Mmhmm,” she said. She’d doodled a rabbit with her pen in the margins of page 18.

“Good,” he said. “I’m going to pay Seth Bomer a visit tonight.”

He thought she would nod, but he hadn’t anticipated the satisfied look in her eyes. Maybe there was something he could do to make this better after all.

 

>>\--->

 

Seth Bomer was easy to find. He had an apartment just off of Starling U’s campus, and he was home after 6 PM when Oliver finally had a chance to suit up. He was going to stay here until Bomer made a move.

“Just sit tight,” Felicity said over the comms. “According to his class schedule, he has a late lab tonight.”

“Is Dig there yet?”

“Not yet,” Felicity said. “He said he had something to do.”

Oliver crouched on a fire escape across the alley from Bomer’s building, and watched as the guy began throwing things into a backpack. “He’s leaving,” he said. He began descending to the street.

After a couple of minutes Bomer opened the door and exited his building. Oliver followed him down the sidewalk, past a liquor store, and across the street to the bus stop, but before Seth reached it, Oliver pulled him aside and into the alley. A neon sign that read “Nick’s” offered the only light. He stood in a low-key threatening pose with one shoulder forward and asked, “Seth Bomer?”

“Y-yeah,” Seth said. “Who wants to know?” His eyes widened as he took in Oliver’s costume. “You’re...you’re that guy - the Hood Guy. What are you doing here?”

“Talking to you,” Oliver said. “I need to ask you some questions.”

Seth’s gaze held for a moment and then dropped. “Is this...is this about what happened with Morgan?”

“I know you raped her,” Oliver said. “I’ve seen the police interrogation records.”

“I didn’t rape her!” Seth said, and then, “You work with the police?”

“No,” Oliver said.

“They let me go,” Seth said. “They didn’t have anything to charge me with. Morgan was just confused.”

“Because of the drug you gave her,” Oliver said.

“I guess,” Seth said. “I mean, no. I didn’t give her anything. She’s been under a lot of stress. The dance routine she’s choreographing isn’t going very well. It’s hard to get quality people.”

“How does he know that?” Felicity asked in an appalled voice. “Oh, right. He’s still stalking her.”

“Morgan’s friends said they saw you talking to her just before Morgan disappeared that night,” Oliver backed Seth into the brick wall underneath the neon sign.

“Look,” Seth said, “I don’t know what you’re thinking, but what happened wasn’t rape. It was beautiful. Morgan loved it. I’ve never been with a girl who wanted to have sex with me so much, and she was in such a great mood. Laughing. It was the best night of my life. I would never rape her. I love her.”

“You drugged her into having sex, you douche scum!” Felicity yelled through the comms. Oliver winced at the noise. “She had no idea what she was doing!”

Oliver frowned. That wasn’t right. The drug didn’t knock you out; it made you horny and happy. You wanted to do something you might not want to do otherwise. That was the problem.

“She told you she wanted to have sex?” Oliver asked. “Did she seem like she wanted to go with you _before_ you sprayed her?”

Seth frowned a little. “Well, no, not before,” he said and then straightened underneath Oliver’s fist. “I mean… Look, if someone sprayed you with this stuff, and the only result was that you had a night of great sex, I don’t think you’d be upset about it,” he said.

Oliver felt his face flush, knowing that Felicity was listening. What was a good comeback for that?

“She’s been with a lot of guys, and most of them have treated her like dirt. I want to treat her like a queen, and I’m prepared to overlook her sexual history.”

“Overlook her--” Felicity sputtered, and Oliver knew exactly what face she was making four miles away underground.  “She doesn’t need you to save her and unsully her. She didn’t want you! Why can’t you just move on?” She made sputtering noises in her throat.

“It sounds like she told you no,” Oliver said. “You don’t get what no means?” He shook Seth a little for emphasis. “If she doesn’t want to be with you, you have to respect that.” Even if it wasn’t fair, even if he actually had been trying to make her happy. She had a say, and if she didn’t want you, those were the hard breaks. You got used to being alone after awhile.

“I just wanted a chance with her!” Seth said, trying to pull himself away from Oliver. “We can’t all be rockstars or billionaire CEOs. I’d be good for her. I made it good for her. I made sure. She has nothing to complain about, even if I did have to use the aphrodisiac.”

“What if she gets pregnant?” Oliver asked. “Did you think of that?” He clamped his lips shut. Where had that question come from? The comms went silent.

“Then I’ll take care of her and the baby. I want to do that anyway. We’d just start a family a little earlier than I planned.” Seth’s face looked smug in the red flashing light.

“What if she doesn’t want _your_ baby?” Oliver asked impatiently. “If she doesn’t want you, why would she want a child of yours? It’d only remind her of how disgusted she is of you and how much she wishes she’d never even met you.”

Seth’s face crumpled, and Oliver pressed his advantage.

“What you’re going to do is get the chemical, and give me a sample, then turn the rest over to the police with your confession that you drugged Morgan Ladd into having sex with you,” Oliver said.

“I’m not,” Seth said, straightening. “They have nothing on me. Morgan’ll come around. The reddit guy said the drug will make her fall in love with me. After a few more times I won’t even need to give it to her.”

“You’re not going near her again,” Oliver said. He lifted Seth and threw him against the wall. He was suddenly really angry. “She has a right to live her life the way she wants it, and you’re not taking that from her!” He punched Seth in the stomach hard twice. The man groaned and sagged against the bricks.

“I told you I love her,” Seth groaned, trying to stand.Oliver hit him again. “You raped her,” Oliver said. “That’s not love.” He hit him again. “Let me know when you’re ready to confess to the police.”

Seth held out for maybe five minutes, long enough for Oliver to feel like a beast, beating on a man who couldn’t defend himself. “I can do this all night,” Oliver said, punching him again in the chest.

Finally Seth gave in. “Alright,” he said through bruised lips. “I’ll tell them. I’ll give you the chemical and I’ll confess. Just stop hitting me.”

Oliver hauled what was left of Seth up and over his shoulder. “We’ll get that, and then we’ll take a trip downtown.” He grunted as he hauled him out of the alley and back towards his apartment. The comms were still very quiet. At Seth’s building they negotiated opening his apartment door, and then Seth passed out. Oliver let him slide to the floor.

“Oliver,” Felicity said finally in a soft voice, “I’m not disgusted by you. You know that, right? I might not like everything that’s happened, but I’m not sorry I met you. I’m glad. I’m glad I know you.”

Oliver closed his eyes and let out a long breath.

“Felicity,” he said into the comms, “Go take the pregnancy test. Positive or negative, we’ll do whatever you need to do. I’ll help you any way I can.”

She sucked in her breath, and then the comm in his ear went dead.

Oliver knew he had another long night ahead of him, so he started slapping the asshole on the floor awake.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I thought it was time to move the plot forward and try and use that to highlight styles of communication and the process of self inspection in our pair. If you have thoughts, leave them below!
> 
> Added: If you have an opinion about whether Felicity should be pregnant [vote here](https://twitter.com/fiacresgirl/status/727161935003848709).


	10. Pass or Fail

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Diggle confronts Oliver about Felicity, and then the two of them face the pregnancy test together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the end of the first act, so I give you a nice bit of resolution, Dear Reader. I may have cried a little writing this chapter. You didn't hear that from me. No, ma'am. 
> 
> I dedicate this chapter to Sam/[CheerUpLovely](http://archiveofourown.org/works/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&work_search%5Bquery%5D=cheeruplovely) who knows about tears.

Oliver spent a little extra time on Seth Bomer just seeing if he could shake anything else loose before SCPD took possession of him, but Bomer’s only noteworthy facet seemed to be his obsession with Morgan Ladd. He was nerdy but straightforward. His apartment was small; other than some Star Wars decor choices and a collection of action figure memorabilia, it was quite spartan. He told Oliver he’d paid for the aphrodisiac in bitcoin.  _ Bitcoin _ . The Starling City Rapist took bitcoin? The transaction might be traceable, though, so Oliver made Bomer print off a copy of the transaction. 

The drug itself was stored in a small glass bottle with a spray top next to a couple of condoms and about ten kinds of dental floss in the bathroom mirror cabinet. Oliver could see through the clear glass that the bottle was almost full. He decanted a small sample into a laboratory vial Felicity had given him and hoped it would be enough for testing. He had to leave the rest for the police.

When he figured he’d pried what he could out of Bomer, he called Diggle to pick them up in the van. Dig arrived fifteen minutes later and guided them through hockey-game traffic all the way downtown. Oliver duck-taped Bomer’s mouth closed and his hands together behind his back and called Lance. The pass off went off without a hitch.

On the way back, Diggle was curiously silent, but Oliver wasn’t concerned until they got back to the Arrow Cave and found it empty.

“Where’s Felicity?” he asked Dig as he put his bow away.

Diggle slowly turned towards him. With the glare from the overhead lights his expression was much clearly unfriendly. “She’s gone home to take a pregnancy test, I guess.”

Oliver froze in the act of unzipping his jacket. “Oh,” he said. “You heard.”

“Yeah, man, ‘Oh,’” Diggle said. “I have a comm too. Were you going to tell me about this? Is she pregnant?”

Oliver finished unzipping and pulled off his gloves. “I don’t know,” he said. “I found her in the bathroom today with one of those kits. She hadn’t told me either.”

Diggle grunted. “This keeps getting worse.”

“We don’t know she’s pregnant,” Oliver said. “She might not be. She probably isn’t.”

“Why? Because you don’t want her to be?” Dig asked. “That’s not how these things work.”

“She told me it was a safe time,” Oliver said. “Relatively safe, anyway.”

“And you believed her?” Dig asked. He narrowed his eyes at Oliver. “What kind of information to they give you about sex in prep school?”

Oliver rolled his eyes and pulled off his jacket. “What could I do about it? My options were limited.”

“What are you going to do about it now? You know if she’s pregnant, this changes everything.”

“I know,” Oliver said. “I’ll do whatever she wants. If she doesn’t want the baby, if she does want it...whatever.”

Diggle crossed his arms over his chest. “I can’t see Felicity on the cover of the tabloids. At least I can’t see her reacting well to being labeled Oliver Queen’s newest sex kitten.”

Oliver straightened. The tabloids. He’d gotten used to being fodder for them when he was younger, but Felicity would be new to all that. He had a vision of a picture of her with a rounded belly in a bathing suit on a beach somewhere under the headline “Tech Genius or Baby Mama?” and felt sick.

“She wouldn’t be that,” he said. “I’d do the right thing.”

Diggle’s eyebrows raised. “Are you telling me--”

“I’m not telling you anything. Felicity’s probably not pregnant anyway, but she’s not getting smeared in all of this. I’ll make sure of it.”

“Oliver, this is not just a one-time thing, is it?” Diggle asked, edging into his space. “Are you guys still…”

Oliver pressed his lips together and stared at Dig who shook his head after a minute. Oliver braced himself for the lecture that was coming.

“You had three relationships last year,” Dig said, “and they all crashed and burned. I know you’re lonely, but--”

“I’m not lonely,” Oliver said. “I mean, I’m not that lonely. I just like her, okay? I like being with her.”

“Felicity said you didn’t remember what had happened,” Dig said.

That pang of annoyance returned, and Oliver breathed in deeply and let the breath out. “Felicity didn’t want to remember because it makes things more complicated. The drug messes with your recall, but it doesn’t give you amnesia.”

Diggle finally smiled. “Or you just weren’t that memorable,” he said.

Oliver gave him a bland look, and Dig relaxed. “I just don’t want to see her wounded, in exile, or gunning for the vigilante,” he said. “We need her on the team. I’ve seen you in action. You don’t have a problem meeting women.”

Oliver let the last remark slide. “She isn’t Helena, Laurel, or McKenna. It’s not the same. She’s not homicidal, she knows I’m the vigilante, and I would have stayed with McKenna.”

“I don’t think so,” Dig said. “Not long term.”

“I liked her,” Oliver said. “I wanted it to work out.”

“Like you want it to work out with Felicity,” Dig said.

“No! It’s not the same,” Oliver said. The two women, while both smart and tough, were not comparable. Felicity was more.

Dig eased up onto a work table and leaned his weight on his arms like some amateur psychologist. “Oh?”

“I don’t do therapy,” Oliver said. “This isn’t complicated. I like her. I like this. We work well together otherwise.”

“You’ve made up your mind,” Dig said. 

“I have,” Oliver said.

“Then God help us all,” Dig said. “Don’t screw this up, or I’ll have to hurt you. She’s like a sister to me. Don’t think I won’t.”

“Noted,” Oliver said. “I won’t screw this up. I promise.”

  
  


>>\--->

 

  
Felicity sat on her bed passing the pregnancy test stick from hand to hand. In just another moment she would get up and go pee on it, and that would be that. Then she’d know what she was dealing with. She could do this. She wasn’t going to be pregnant. She couldn’t be. Not from one night of sex late in her cycle.

How many times had she gotten her period and thought, “Not now”? More times than she could count. There was never a good time to get your period, although right now she’d give her bank balance to see some blood or feel that telltale cramping start.

She remembered her very first period. She’d gotten it on the first day of high school. She’d skipped two grades and was half a foot shorter and considerably flatter chested than her classmates, and then that had happened. She remembered being scared to call her mother to pick her up from school because Donna worked hard and was always tired, but Felicity had bled through her underwear and into her jean skirt, so she’d had to. And, miracle of miracles, Donna had come with a change of clothes and a big fat maxi pad, and she’d taken Felicity out for ice cream to boot.

“There aren’t that many built-in advantages to being a woman, sweetie,” she’d said. “So you have to add them into your life yourself sometimes.”

Felicity looked at the bottle of wine and the Dove chocolates on her nightstand now. All she had to do to earn them was pee on this stick. She clutched it in her hand harder.

The doorbell rang. Felicity swallowed. She knew who that would be. She supposed she’d been waiting for him all along. She walked out of her bedroom, down the short hall, and through the living room to open the door. Oliver stood there in a pair of jeans and a navy blue henley. He raised his eyebrows at her, and she noticed again how round and pretty his eyes were under the ridge of his brow. “Come in,” she said. He ducked his head and walked past her.

“I-I haven’t taken it yet,” Felicity said when he was standing in front of the couch. He wasn’t in his Arrow costume, and it was weird to be having this conversation with him like he was her boyfriend or something.

Oliver licked his lips. “Why not?”

Felicity hugged her arms around herself and didn’t say anything. It wasn’t like her to avoid facing things. She was an eat-your-peas-first kind of girl, but this was Oliver and maybe a  _ baby _ . Those were  _ two overwhelming _ things tied together in one problem.

Finally Oliver said, “Come here.” He lifted his arm and she gravitated toward the space there like a magnet. “We’ll do it together,” he said. “You pee, and I’ll read it.”

She felt the strength in his shoulder and bicep, and it bolstered her. She pressed her face into his chest and breathed in his scent. He smelled like cold air and cedar. “Okay,” she said, and she went into the bathroom to accomplish this bit of business.

It was tricky making sure she peed on the stick right, she remembered that. She wiped off the stick afterwards with a washcloth and then washed her hands and dried them. She avoided looking at the window on the test. That was Oliver’s job. He said he would do it.

Felicity came out of the bathroom and held the stick out. Oliver took it and didn’t say anything.

“Wait another minute. You’re supposed to… If I’m... There will be two lines,” Felicity said.

Oliver just nodded and then looked down at the little window on the test stick. He frowned. Felicity could feel her breath build up inside her chest, and her heart beat faster. What if… She closed her eyes and started to count: 1, 2, 3… When she had reached 60, Oliver cleared his throat. She opened her eyes and took in his face. He looked relieved. “One line,” he said. “You’re not pregnant.”

Felicity took the stick from him and stared at it. Sure enough, there was only one line. “I’m not pregnant,” she said. “How’d you know about the lines?”

“Everybody knows about the two lines,” Oliver said. “From commercials.” Then he looked sheepish. “Also, this might not be my first pregnancy scare.” 

“You don’t have any kids, though?” The idea that he might was suddenly terrifying. Were there other women out there raising other little blond babies? Who were they?

“None that I know about,” he said. “One girl - her name was Samantha - she was pregnant, but she miscarried.”

Felicity didn’t know what to say to that. Congratulations? Such a near miss. “How long,” she started to say, and then the relief hit her and her shoulders slumped. She wasn’t pregnant. Oh,  _ thank God _ she wasn’t pregnant. She felt tears form in her eyes, and she reached up to swipe at them. What her fingers found on her face were not tears but rivulets. She saw Oliver’s reaction immediately. He stiffened and his eyes dropped to the floor. She grabbed for his hand and missed.

“Oliver,” she said. It came out as a croak. Somewhere in the back of her mind a picture of  _ her _ pretty blond baby was fading quickly away. “It’s not--”

“It’s fine,” he said. “I should go.”

She grabbed for him again and this time she caught his bicep. She latched onto it like a drowning woman would a piece of jetsam. “I don’t,” she said as the feelings overtook her. “I’m sorry.” His face looked blurry through her tears. “Could you… Could you hold me?” 

Oliver frowned and wrapped his other arm around her shoulders. He palmed her head and pressed her wet face into his side. She wrapped both arms around his broad chest and slumped against him. He felt so good, like a wall that would never crumble. She could hold on to him. Time would pass, but the strength of his body - the strength of him - could,  _ would _ never waiver. She looked up to see that his eyes were damp too and his jaw was taut. His arms were steel bands around her, but his face was ashen.

“Oliver,” she said. “Can we?” She tilted her head towards her bedroom, and he picked her up in one movement and walked in that direction. In a dozen paces, they were there. He laid her down on the bed and moved to step back, but she grabbed his shirt. “Stay with me,” she said.

He gave a jerky nod, and then seated himself gingerly next to her. She rolled and put her head into his lap, and he gently stroked her hair. The strands caught on the callouses of his hand. Felicity found that funny. Even her hair did not want him to leave. “It’s not you,” she said.

Oliver tensed. Felicity waited. Eventually he said in a deliberately light tone, “It’s not you, it’s me?”

“It’s not your baby I didn’t want,” she said. She couldn’t see the expression on his face, so she scootched up and then hauled herself up next to him. “It was any baby.”

He made a jerky nod but didn’t look convinced. 

“I’m serious,” she said. “I’m not ready to be a mother yet. The fact that it would have been your baby was the only thing this situation had going for it  _ at all _ . I mean, school would have been a breeze because it would be my kid, but he would never hate gym because…” She smiled up at him, and he relaxed fractionally.

“Also, given how you’re so ugly and everything,” she said, “I was guaranteed to have a hideously deformed monster baby. Not pretty at all.”

Oliver looked taken aback, and Felicity snorted through her tears.

“A little genius baby, you mean,” he said, his lips turning up at the end. “Coming out with tiny glasses on her face, raising her hand to answer a question.”

Oh, ouch. “I’m sure your vigilante genes would thrash any nerdiness out of our baby in the womb,” she said. She grimaced and touched her stomach. “Imagine the in-utero fetus parkour.” It was funny now that it wasn’t going to happen, but she felt a tiny tinge at that thought. She wasn’t going to have Oliver Queen’s baby.

“It wasn’t because of the Oliver Queen persona?” Oliver asked.

“The Oliver Queen persona?”

He made a face. “You know, billionaire playboy, fuckup. Womanizer.”

Felicity thought over what to say. She sensed this question wasn’t asked lightly, but Oliver could be very hard to read, and he was excellent at compartmentalizing and being who he had to be in the moment.  _ Had _ it distressed him last year when he’d had to play the douchebag for everyone? Finally she said, “The press would have had a field day. ‘Golddigger Secretary Snares Billionaire CEO with Love Child.’”

Oliver’s eyebrows came down in a V. “You wouldn’t have had to worry about that,” he said.

“What do you mean?”

His eyes slanted left and then, quickly, right. “I mean, we would have figured out whatever it was you needed, whether you wanted to continue the pregnancy or… But you’re not pregnant.”

“Oliver,” she said, “How much thought did you give all of this?”

“Some,” he said. “It took awhile to get Seth Bomer downtown.” He brushed his hand down the sleeve of his henley. “You know I have money, so that’s not a problem, but I wouldn’t have embarrassed you.” He lowered his head and looked at her earnestly. “I had to put Ollie to rest anyway. He doesn’t fit the CEO image.”

Felicity felt confused. “But we’re not together,” she said, lifting her head out of his lap and sitting up in bed. “I don’t know exactly what this is.” She gestured between them. His face was expressionless, and she decided to address the elephant in the room. “What do  _ you _ think this is?”

“I don’t know,” he said. He leaned back on the bed, and Felicity pressed her ear against his heart. It beat steadily, strongly inside his chest. She supposed he’d end this now. There was nothing less erotic than being handed a pregnancy test.

“All I know is that I want it, whatever it is.” He raised his hand and brushed her hair gently with his fingers.

She swallowed. She looked up at him, but all she could see was the evidence of his beard on the underside of his chin.

“If  _ you _ don’t,” he said finally, “I understand.” His throat worked as he swallowed.

“I do,” she said quickly, quicker than her brain could take it all in. Did he want this to be something? He must if he were saying this. She wrapped her arms around his chest one more time and squeezed. He was so solid, and she didn’t ever want to move from this spot.

“It’s what you said,” he said.

“What I said?”

“When we were...the first time we were together. I want to have something good. My mother and the company and  _ Tommy _ , that’s all bad, but this...this isn’t. You know me, the real me, and I like you. I don’t want to give that up. I want this.”

“You want this?” she asked, raising her head to look at him.

“I do,” he said.

“So you want to be my...boyfriend?”

“I want to be your,” he paused, thinking. “Lover?”

“Lover sounds creepy,” Felicity said. “For a word that’s supposed to be sweet, it’s so sleazy sounding.”

“We’ll you’re already my friend and my literal partner in crime,” Oliver said.

“And your employee,” she said.

He wrinkled his nose. “This is going to have to be off the clock,” he said. “I already pay you enough overtime, and that pension plan you insisted on is expensive.”

She smacked his chest. “I get it,” she said. “We’re beyond titles. It’s already too messy.” 

He grabbed her hand and held it. “Not for me,” he said. “I’m the mess. You’re the one who sorts things out.”

“Okay,” Felicity said.

“Okay?”

“Okay.”

“C’mere,” he said and hauled her up on his chest so he could kiss her. It was the softest, sweetest kiss, so gentle. He lifted his hands to cradle her head in them, and she felt her eyes begin to leak again. He was too much. Too much.

“Oliver,” she said. “Can you stay tonight?”

“I’m not going anywhere,” he said. And he didn’t.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I got my first period on the first day of eighth grade, and it was _awful_. No ice cream. Just 30+ more years of periods.


	11. Honeymoon Period

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oliver and Felicity get to know each other better in their fledgling relationship.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I dedicate this chapter to miriam1779, for all of the lovely flailing. Thank you!

Oliver was better boyfriend material than Felicity would have imagined. He spent nearly every evening at her apartment, taking to Netflix and sex on the couch like a native. He was tidy in the bathroom and made coffee for her every morning. She wasn’t sure when he got up, but it was _way_ too early for her taste. Brewing coffee wasn’t exactly high-end cooking, but she was grateful to wake up to his efforts. He ground the beans himself.

About a week after Oliver started spending the night, he rented her a garage. Her unit came with a carport, but its northern exposure meant her rear windshield routinely got sprayed with ice when the wind whipped its way across the bay. Oliver secured a garage with a stall and a half right across the parking lot from her unit.

“What am I, a kept woman now?” she asked.

“I needed somewhere to store my bike.” When she didn’t comment, he smiled and said, “I guess I shouldn’t give you the other present, then.”

She paused in the middle of pouring her second cup of coffee. “Other present?”

He pulled a brown paper bag out of the pocket of his leather jacket, put it on the counter, and raised one eyebrow at her.

Felicity finished pouring and then carefully placed the French press back on the granite. This was a gift, Oliver’s first gift as her boyfriend. What could he have chosen to buy her?

“Is it a puppy?” she asked casually.

His lips twitched. “Did you want a puppy?”

“I’ve never had one,” she said. “Cats were better suited to our lifestyle in Vegas.”

“Noted,” Oliver said. “This is not a puppy.”

Her hand hovered over the bag uncertainly, and then she reached for it. “It’s light,” she said.

“Mmm,” he said.

She felt through the paper. The box inside was about six inches long and rectangular. “It’s not a tiara, is it? Because I have to say, I don’t think we’re at the jewelry stage yet, but if this is a tiara, I might have to make an exception - for my mom’s sake. She once ranked all of Princess Diana’s tiaras from glam to snooze. She was more of a Fergie fan, to be honest. Mom thought Diana needed to take more fashion risks.”

“Your mother sounds interesting. Are you going to open that?”

Felicity unrolled the top of the bag and put her hand inside. She pulled out...a remote car starter?

Her confusion must have shown on her face because Oliver said, “I tested it to see if it will work from your front door. It will as long as your car is within a 200-yard range.”

She frowned. “When did that particular garage become available? I asked about upgrading last year, and the manager said there was a wait list.”

Oliver folded his arms over his chest.

“I don’t want to know, do I?” Felicity asked. “Just tell me this wasn’t the vigilante’s doing.”

He looked offended. “I do have a few other resources, Felicity,” he said.

“Well, thank you,” she said, smiling. “I won’t deny this will make my mornings easier.” She walked over to him and pressed a kiss on the bit of his face she could reach barefooted. His stubble tickled her lips. He leaned over and grabbed her waist, lifting her up on the counter before she knew what was happening. He nipped at her lips, then opened his mouth wider and deepened the kiss. She wrapped her legs around his waist, and pressed her heels into his firm ass. God, he was so juicy, and it _was_ breakfast time.

She would have thought that all of the sex they’d had in this townhouse - in this _kitchen_ \- in the past week and a half would have muted some of that hunger, but he was just as sexy and nearly as mysterious as he’d ever been. Only now she knew exactly what he was capable of. She reached a hand down and cupped his cock.

“We’ve got a meeting at nine,” Oliver said inside her mouth.

“A quickie, then,” she said, inserting her thumb and forefinger into the flap of his jeans. “You only have to make me come three times.”

He laughed. “Three times,” he said. “You’re funny.”

“It will be hardly any work at all. Remote car starters are a well known aphrodisiac.” She sucked his tongue as her fingers worked the zipper down.

“Are they?” It was more of a groan than a sentence, but she knew what he meant. Who needed words anyway?

“Not that you need any assistance, what with _this_ ,” she slid her hand around his cock, “to help you.”

His hands were on the elastic of her sleep shorts, tugging them down, and she lifted her hips so he could pull them off of her. “C’mon, c’mon,” she said. “Stick it in.” She swallowed his stuttered laugh before it could leave his mouth.

He accommodated her request, homing in on her entrance and easing into her inch by inch. She spread her legs and hooked her feet behind his hips as he shoved home. “Oh, that’s nice,” she said, wiggling against him. The metal button of his jean flap was cold against the inside of her thigh, but she pressed harder against him anyway.

“Nice?”

“Mmm,” she said, “Hot. Very hot. Even better without the condom. Now kind of move it in and out. You know the way.” She leaned back and giggled. Was there anything better than this prelude to a great orgasm, surrounded by a gorgeous man who’d just done something thoughtful for her? Win-win-win. She was definitely winning here. He was so thick. It was fantastic, his cock. His face. His everything.

His eyes sparked at her. He broke the kiss and scooped up her ass in his hands. “I know the way,” he said, driving into her so forcefully she let out a little “Oof.”

He set a quick pace, and she closed her eyes to concentrate on the amazing friction he was generating. “Oh, oh,” she said, “that’s good. Right there.”

He buried his face in her neck and sucked the skin underneath her ear. She began to pant. “No hickeys. We have that meeting with Isabel today. I know she’s watching us. She might suspect something.”

He trailed his lips down to her breast, pulled it into his mouth, and sucked the nipple hard through her thin tank top. By now he knew exactly which buttons to push. That combined with his rocking right into her g-spot made her clench around him hard. Her thighs tightened on his hips, and she cried out.

“That’s one,” he said, not slowing at all. “Two more to go.”

“I don’t know if that counts,” she said. “I suppose it depends on how you define an orgasm.”

“I define it as you coming,” he said. “So, yes, it counts.”

“If you want to be like th--” she said, but he swiveled his hips in the best way possible and drove in at a different angle. She began to breathe out in shallow breaths. “Oh, ooooh, yeah. Yeah. I swear to god you are ruining me for future sex.” She leaned back on her palms and focused on the way he was grinding against her clit. She fluttered and clenched again, that wave of intense feeling bumping up against her but not quite swamping her yet. Her leg began to shake against his back. “It’s good for you too, right?” she blurted out.

His fingers dug into her ass and he groaned. Instead of answering he kissed her mouth hard. Her thoughts split in two directions, one part of her concentrating on that wave lapping inside her, but the other waited to hear his answer. When he broke the kiss, she stared up in his eyes. “Right?” she asked again. She needed to know.

His eyelids were half closed, but the look he gave her was nothing but a laser beam of plain desire. It pushed her over the edge, and she leaned back on her hands as the orgasm overwhelmed her. He kept fucking her, and she bore down hard, willing it not to end just yet. A little bit more. A little. Bit. Ooohmigod.

“Ahh,” he stiffened and gave a low grunt deep in his throat. “God, Felicity,” he said. “So good.”

She wiped the sweat from her forehead and pressed her hot face against his gray t-shirt.

“Forget about work,” she said. “Let’s just do this _all day long_. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner.”

He beamed down at her and kissed her on the forehead.

 

>>\--->

 

“How did you manage to rent that garage?” she asked him after she’d pulled herself back together and could think again.

“I rented out the unit next to yours, paid three years’ in advance, and insisted on it as a condition of agreement.”

She stiffened. “But Stupid Ryan lives there.”

“Not anymore. His friends are bad company, and his taste in music was terrible. I didn’t survive the island to listen to Nickelback on loop.”   

“You got rid of him?” She didn’t know how to feel about that.

“You’re upset?”  

“Not upset exactly.” A thought occurred to her. “So no more all-weekend weed parties?”

He passed his thumbs over her nipples. “No more confrontational girlfriend.”

No more Kristina. The idea felt almost as good as the little movements he was still making inside her. Better, if she were being brutally honest. “You know how many times she told me to stay away from Stupid Ryan? And how many times her dog made a mess on my doormat?”

“You’ve said.” He had the self-satisfied look on his face of a man who’s accomplished great deeds.

“You’re going to move in next door?”

“No,” he said. “I like it here.”

She decided to roll with it and savor the huge favor he’d just done her. “My hero,” she said and craned her neck to kiss him again.

 

>>\--->

  
  
Ten days into whatever this relationship was, Oliver found her books, and Felicity knew it was over. The part where she kept her dignity in this relationship was finished.

He’d been vacuuming in the bedroom and apparently pulled the box out from under her bed. She heard his incredulous laugh from the bathroom.

“ **Billionaire without a Past**?” he asked.

“Whaaat?” She hurried out to the bedroom and saw him kneeling on the floor and pulling book after book from a box with a big mailing label. She tried to wrench the box away from him, but he held her back with one arm and pulled another thin paperback out.

“ **Return of the Untamed Billionaire**? **Irresistible Russian Tycoons**? Felicity, what is this?” His wide grin split his face into segments. She blushed profusely, feeling the heat go all the way down into her chest.

“I didn’t buy them!” she said.

“ **Stranded with the Boss**? **Billionaires and Babies**?” He squinted at the cover with the twin girls, then flipped it over, reading aloud:

“When Tessa Randall sues CEO Dragan Markovic's company for unfair termination, he insists on hearing her side of the story. But the billionaire known as The Dragon gets more than he bargained for when he's stranded at his snowy Alaskan lodge with Tessa and her twin toddlers. Now the flame-haired beauty wants to uncover his story. How can he tell her that her children remind him of his harrowing past and all that he lost? Or that the sweet family of three is slowly melting The Dragon's frozen heart…

She tried to grab it away from him, but he held the book out of her reach. “Is this a secret fetish? You don’t have to be afraid I’m going to fire you, by the way. You’re doing a credible job.”

For half a minute, Felicity considered throwing herself out the window and freezing to death in the snow. It seemed like a better end than dying of embarrassment. She balled her hands into fists instead. “My mom sent them after you made me your executive assistant,” she said. She pointed at the book he was holding. “I swear I didn’t tell her anything. I think she sent them to me as a joke.”

“The Dragon?” Then he did something she’d never seen him do: he guffawed. He sat back against the bed and laughed until tears came from his eyes.

She sank to the floor, narrowed her eyes, and waited. “Are you finished?” she asked when he’d finally subsided.

“I don’t think I’ll ever be finished with this,” he said. Then he must have noted her expression because he pulled her up against him. “Here, come and melt my frozen heart.”

His other words had finally sunk in. “ _And credible_? I am the best thing that ever happened to you or QC, Mr. Queen.”

She elbowed him hard, but he just laughed again. “My mom likes the billionaire books,” she said. “They’re one of her escapes. She works long hours and sometimes gets treated like crap by the men she has to wait on.”

“Wait on?”

“She works in a casino. She makes decent money now, with tips, but we really struggled when I was growing up. The heroes of these books used to be millionaires, I think, but then...well, inflation. How much fantasy money is enough, I guess?”

“So how many of these have _you_ read?” he asked, picking out another from the box. **The Billionaire’s Secret Mistress**. Oh, god.

She sensed a trap. “A few,” she said, “when I was younger. Back then the guys weren’t Russians. They were nearly all Mediterranean types who would take their heroines to Tuscany and keep them in fancy villas.”

“They kept them in villas?”

“Yeah, like for sex and, at some point marriage, but they were all virgins, so...awkward?”

“They were all virgins?”

She nodded. “Gorgeous virgins in their twenties. Very innocent, but often pretty dim. Headstrong, but never in it for the money. Their hair color varied.”

“And the billionaires? Were they virgins too?”

She scoffed. “No. They were walking testosterone, killers in the boardroom and the bedroom. Moody and misunderstood.”

“They really killed people?” He looked intrigued.

She shook her head. “Just imagine them as super rich, dark, and very sexy.”

“So like me, then,” he said.

“Well, generally they had more chest hair,” she said, patting him on the arm, “and you’re more of a dirty blonde than a brunette. They also knew what they were doing with their companies.”

He snaked an arm around her waist. “That’s low,” he said. “I have chest hair.”

“Barely.”

“You’ve never complained before.”

“All types of bodies can be beautiful,” she said.

He kissed her on the forehead. “Maybe I should read a couple of these for tips.”

She stuffed the books back into the box. “Maybe you shouldn’t. These guys are troglodytes, and I already have a hard time getting you to talk.”

“I want to meet your mom,” Oliver said. “If she’s anything like you, she’ll be fascinating.”

“Maybe someday - when you’re ready,” she said. “My mom is a force of nature. You may have been through a crucible, but you’re not prepared for that much Smoak.”

 

>>\--->

 

Before Felicity’s warm, wet mouth closed around him, she asked, “What’s Lawrence Westerby’s wife’s name?” Her hushed voice bounced against the tiles of his Queen Consolidated bathroom and echoed.

He knew this. He knew all of these names, but he still let her think he struggled. “Uh,” he said, leaning his head back against the wall, “Karen?”

Felicity pulled her mouth away. “Karah. She’s his third wife. I think she’s younger than I am.” She stuck her tongue out. It was short and pink. She couldn’t touch the tip of her nose with it like he could his. They’d figured that out a few days ago.

“Sure,” he said, “Karah. I knew that.”

“This is why we have to work on this stuff. I know AEC is a done deal, but all of these company heads need to see you as a force to be reckoned with so the board knows you’re always on top of your game.”

Felicity had this theory that he was a kinesthetic learner - that he picked things up much more quickly and comprehensively by doing them. Oliver wasn’t sure how this translated into mid-day blow jobs, but if this is what she thought he needed to jog his memory, he wasn’t going to tell her no. That would be crazy. He might be a head case, but he definitely wasn’t crazy.

Besides, she wasn’t wrong. He had gotten to know Felicity _quite a lot_ better by having sex with her. Like he knew right now - from the way her eyes were glazing over and her nipples were tightening through her gray silk blouse - he knew she was getting really turned on. She was going to keep coaching him, though, out of a sense of responsibility, if he didn’t mix it up a little.

“I think I’d learn these names better if you were wearing fewer clothes,” he said.

She looked up at him and raised an eyebrow. “Which clothes?” she asked.

“Underwear,” he said. “For a start.” He pulled her to her feet and rucked up her polka dotted skirt.

“I don’t think we have time for that,” she said, slapping at his hands.

“There’s time,” he said. He put a finger around the thin elastic at her hips and pulled. “I’ll make it worth your while.”

Her eyes went liquid but did not lose their suspicion, and he could tell she was doing the actual math. “Well, we do have that meeting with Isabel and the board in an hour, and you’re going to have to psych yourself up to confront her with that second inspection we did on Everlasting Medical. I can’t get too messy, but you can practice being firm. Sometimes you go easy on women.”

He suppressed a smile. “You mean like with you?”

She rolled her eyes. “I mean like with your mother and with Isabel. She’s evil. I know you don’t think she is, but I’m telling you there’s something off about her. I don’t like the way she looks at you or talks to you, and I’m not going to allow her to ruin this company either.”

“My mother?”

She stabbed a finger into his breastbone. “Isabel. Here, I’ll be her, and you be you.”

“Felicity,” he said. “I’ve got this. I’ve put my foot down with people before.” If she knew the ways he’d gotten people to tell him things or do what he’d needed them to do, she wouldn’t be standing there with that school-teacher look on her face. She’d detour directly out of his life forever. That’s why she wasn’t going to get to know that Oliver. Ever.

Felicity stared at him coldly, and he realized she was channeling her inner bitch. “The board did not authorize a second inspection, Mr. Queen,” she said. She waited a beat for him to respond.

Okay, what the hell. If this is what she wanted to do. “I remembered there was something I’d heard about Everlasting Medical before, so I doubled up on the diligence. The cost is a fraction of what we’d lose if we went ahead with this deal,” he said, moving closer to Felicity.

“This is just the first in a series of important deals we have the potential to do with Everlasting’s parent company,” Felicity said. “If we make this small acquisition, we have the opportunity for large expansion down the line in our construction and aerospace divisions. QC’s new applied sciences division will have access to their research. There’s no downside. You would know that if you had any business background at all.” She gave him a challenging look.

Oliver knew this was supposed to set his back up, but her posture and the challenging look in her eyes was so adorable, it was hard. And _he_ was still very hard. Time to do something about that. He grabbed her by the hips, walked them over to the couch in the corner of the bathroom, and pulled her down on top of him. She levered her weight onto her knees and guided him inside her. As she settled herself on top of him, she shuddered.

“Everlasting has an abbreviated portfolio of projects,” he said. “There are only two devices ready for the FDA testing process, and one of them is designed for mass infusions which is of questionable value at best. Queen Consolidated would not benefit.” He put his hands on her hips and pulled her up off of him. When she came back down, he had to focus to remember their script. Her long, blond hair was in a smooth updo, her blouse was modestly buttoned to the base of her throat and her long skirt covered their laps, but underneath that was an enticing heat, moisture, and pressure. She was condescending, ferocious, erotic, and playful all at once, and it was the sexiest thing he’d ever seen.

“Of questionable value!” Felicity was panting lightly. “I submitted a report from Brad Vincent, the head of Applied Sciences. He listed specific ways this technology might be of use.”

Oliver flipped Felicity on her back and pinned her hands above her with one of his. “And I’m telling you, Applied Sciences has almost no footprint in the medical sciences.” He drove into her, and she gasped and then moaned. Her hips were shaking under his. “Why would we want to start by acquiring some piece of equipment that seems straight out of science fiction?”

“Uh,” Felicity said. She fought against the strength of his arm, and he felt her inner muscles contract around him and pull. “I think that you’ll see, if you look at page 5 in the included report…” she began, but her gaze went indistinct. “You’ll see...Oh, god,” she said, “You know I can’t handle it when you get all--”

“Cocky?” He rocked in hard twice more, and she arched her back.

“Brilliant. You’re so brilliant,” she said. “Oh, oh. People don’t realize how smart you are. It’s so goddamn… It’s so damnnnnn…” And then she tensed and collapsed on the couch with a long groan.

Oliver released her hands and pumped into her with greater speed. “It’s your script,” he said under his breath before he let the feeling in the base of his spine and his balls swamp him. “If anyone’s brilliant…” He held her legs open wider, and lost himself in the feel of her until, with a shout, he let himself come. He buried his head in the space next to hers and kissed her temple. It was sweaty, but her hair wasn’t very messy. He wouldn’t be in too much trouble for this bit of business.

“We wrote it together,” Felicity said. She squeezed her legs around him and he felt her do the same to his cock inside. He pumped a few more times lazily.

“We wrote it, you’ll say it, and Isabel will get some of what’s coming to her,” she said, pressing her wide, gorgeous mouth against his. “We make a good team.”

“We do,” he said. “We do. Isabel won’t know what hit her.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All of the titles mentioned in this chapter are available for sale on Amazon.


	12. Meeting Raisa

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oliver takes Felicity home to meet an important woman in his life, and she finds more than she expected there.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we get another look at an underdeveloped Arrow character: Raisa! I dedicate this chapter to @ellefraser17. Chin up! You can do it!

Felicity pulled her Mini Cooper off of the long entrance road and onto a thinner, curved driveway that led, after a minute under a snow-covered canopy of branches, to a graveled yard fronting a porticoed entrance. She parked the car about a hundred feet from the door, careful not to block any potential traffic, and turned to see Oliver looking amused.

“You can park closer,” he said.

“What if there are deliveries?” she asked.

“It’s after five,” he said, although the digital clock on her dash read 4:57.

“Okay, Mr. Big Moneypants,” she said, “tell me where one parks when one visits a side entrance of the Queen Mansion.” In her mind the last two words were definitely capitalized. “Why aren’t we going in the main entrance, anyway? Are you ashamed of me?”

It was a joke, but it kind of wasn’t. The carved wooden door ornamented with its side panels of beveled glass was nicer than any door on any house she’d ever lived in. Or, rather, building. There had been a house once, when she was very little, but for years and years, the doors she’d opened and closed had been attached to apartments and dormitories, many of them downright seedy.

“We’re going in the back way because it’s the entrance I use most,” Oliver said. “You told me you wanted to know more about me, the ‘personal details,’” he said. He let his eyes slid to the door and then back to her. “I always use this door if I don’t expect to see my family, and given that my mother’s in prison…” He raised his eyebrows.

That was a good enough reason, she supposed. She turned the car off and put her keys in her purse. “I’m ready then. Let me know where the room with the ex-girlfriends’ bodies is, and I’ll avoid it.”

He touched the scruff on his chin and smiled. “Nice,” he said.

She grinned at him and reached for the door handle. “Let’s go.”

  


>>\--->

 

 

The kitchen ceiling was at least fifteen feet high, and the wooden cupboards lining the walls went nearly all the way up. She’d half expected there to be a huge open hearth like in **The Tudors** , but of course there wasn’t. This house probably wasn’t more than a hundred, maybe a hundred and fifty, years old. How long had there been very rich people in this part of the country?

“Did you family build this?” she blurted out.

Oliver frowned. “No, no, of course not,” he said. “The real money doesn’t go back that far. You didn’t research this?”

“I started to,” she said, “but it got too intimidating. I mean, I know your family’s net worth because of the reports that come across my desk, but I’ve only read Wikipedia articles on your predecessors.”

“Intimidating,” he repeated. “You stayed in the Glades during the Undertaking. You faced down the Dollmaker.”

“I wasn’t sleeping with the Dollmaker,” she said. “I only had to be young and female to lure him in.”

“And beautiful,” Oliver said. “And brave.” His smile went sideways. “It’s good to know that it never got serious between you.”

She elbowed him. “Stop it,” she said. “At some point tonight there’s going to be a flatware quiz, I know it.”  

“Nope,” he said. “But if flatware etiquette is a turn on for you, I can arrange something. It’s usually worth the effort.”

“Worth the effort,” she repeated, smiling and shaking her head. Just then the door in the far corner opened, and a middle-aged women entered carrying some take-out bags. She smiled at them.

“Mister Oliver,” she said and came over to kiss his cheek.

“Oliver,” he said. “My mom’s not here, remember?”

She put the bags on the counter behind them and then turned to Felicity. “And you must be Felicity,” she said. Her accent sounded Eastern European. “I am Raisa.”

“Yes,” Felicity said. “It’s very nice to meet you.” She shook Raisa’s hand.

“Raisa kept me alive during my teenage years,” Oliver said. “She was Mom and Dad’s housekeeper, but half her job then was making sure they didn’t kill me and I didn’t kill myself.”

“It was challenge,” Raisa said with a fond grin. “He and Tommy Merlyn were trouble. But who knows better that boys are trouble than a Russian woman?”

Felicity frowned trying to read the name on the bags. Cafe Munir. “Are we..?”

Raisa glanced at the bags. “Oliver told me you liked Lebanese? He did not want me to cook. ‘Too much work,’ he said.”

“I do like Lebanese,” Felicity said. “Did you have to drive all the way to Starling City to get it?”

Raisa shook her head. “They delivered to the front entrance,” Raisa said. “Only the regular delivery people know about the back door. And boys who sneak in in the middle of night.” She grabbed the bags and took them over to a table surrounded by four chairs, and then she began unpacking them. Hummus, falafel, tabouli salad… There were a number of entrees as well. Raisa set one on a placemat. “Oliver said you liked grilled chicken.”

“I do,” Felicity said. “But if you’d prefer to have it…”

“I got myself the lamb,” Raisa said. She slid a sideways glance at Oliver. “He’s paying.”

Felicity laughed and pulled out her chair. “Good idea,” she said.

 

>>\--->

 

Halfway through dinner, Felicity finally asked the burning question. “So how wild was Oliver, really?”

Raisa didn’t blink. “It depends,” she said. “Do you want to know about the girls or the problems?”

Felicity raised her eyebrows surprised at Raisa’s directness. She backtracked. “I don’t know,” she said. She wanted to hear that Oliver was going to be a good boyfriend. _That’s_ what she wanted.

Raisa seemed to sense that. She put her fork down next to her plate. “When they kept Oliver on a schedule, he was fine most of the time. He went to school, he played soccer and basketball, baseball. He ran…” she stopped to think, “across the country? I can’t remember how you say it. There were a lot of smelly socks.” She wrinkled up her nose.

Felicity laughed and looked at Oliver. “Cross country?” He shrugged.

“When he got older,” Raisa said, “he quit some of the sports and started with the girls. His mother thought if he was dating Laurel, he would be okay.” She looked dubious then took another small bite of her lamb kebab and swallowed. “The stuff with the cops was mostly just pranks or driving too fast. His parents should have made him get a job, buy his own car.” She wagged a finger at Oliver. “Boys that age need work. Tired people don’t get into so much trouble.”

She turned back to Felicity and put her hand over Felicity’s. “He was always sweet. Maybe a little stubborn, but a good heart. When my Marina--” she stopped and looked away.

Felicity looked at Oliver and raised her eyebrows slightly.

“Marina was Raisa’s daughter,” Oliver said. “She died when she was sixteen. Of leukemia.”

Felicity put her other hand on top of Raisa’s. “I’m very sorry.”

Raisa shook her head. “I had her eight more years because of Mr. Queen.”

“Because of Oliver?” Felicity asked. How old had Oliver been when Marina died?

“No, his father, Robert Queen,” Raisa said. “He saved her. We were living in Moscow with my sister, Lara, when Marina got sick. It was after the Soviet Union had collapsed. Lara got a job as Mr. Queen’s translator. It was a lucky break, but she is really good with languages. When my Marina got sick, we couldn’t do... A lot of medicine weren’t available anymore. Mr. Queen told me that he would find a way to get my daughter treatment, and he did. He arranged for us to come here, he gave me a job, and he paid for her chemotherapy.”

“And she got better?” Felicity asked.

“She did, but it came back when she was in high school, and even with stem cell treatment, she was too sick.” She glanced at Oliver with a sad fondness. “This boy brought her to school every day.”

Felicity felt her mouth drop open. “ _Oliver_ did?”  

“He did,” Raisa said. She patted her head. “Her hair was…”

“She lost her hair,” Oliver said, “and the other kids, some of them were being jerks. I drove her to school in my dad’s Jag.”

“You dad’s Jag?”

He shrugged again. “High school kids are easily impressed.”

“He took Marina to her junior dance too,” Raisa said. “I have pictures.”

Felicity frowned. “How much younger was she?”

Oliver looked embarrassed. “Five years. She was between me and Thea. Marina was family, okay? I grew up with her. It wasn’t weird. She needed a date. She spent most of her life at the doctor’s or in bed.”

“Mrs. Queen bought her a dress,” Raisa said.

Felicity felt her eyebrows rise. “Your mother bought her a dress?”

Oliver nodded. “My mom liked her. She was sweet and smart. Marina used to babysit Thea all the time, and Mom gave her the run of the house. She was great - you would have liked her.” Oliver looked wistful. “Everyone did.”

“Except for the kids at her school?”

“Marina didn’t go there that long. She went to the same school as Thea and me, but then when she got sick, it was too far to commute, so she transferred to the local school. They didn’t know her, and they didn’t give her much of a chance.” He looked angry.

“But then Oliver started taking her in the mornings, and they were better,” Raisa said.

“So you were like twenty-one?” Felicity asked. She’d barely started on her tabouli salad and had only picked at her chicken, but this was far more interesting than food.  

“I had an unexpected break in my schedule,” Oliver said, his lips twitching. “And back then I was still something of a catch. I’d only been thrown out of two schools.”

Raisa smiled at Felicity. “Marina liked him, but he was always gentleman.”

Felicity grinned at her whatever-he-was. “That’s Oliver alright. Very proper and gentlemanly.”

“She was like my sister,” Oliver said. “And she was dying of leukemia. She needed someone to be nice to her.”

Raisa beamed at him. “And you were very nice. I will never forget.” She finished up her kebab and pulled out a small box. “Dessert. Do you like baklava?”

Felicity looked down at her full plate. “Maybe later,” she said. “I’ve got to catch up.”

Oliver stood up and started putting boxes back in the big take-out bag. He took it over to the counter and rummaged around under the sink.

Raisa touched Felicity’s shoulder and held her eyes. “One other thing: Laurel was not the perfect girlfriend he lets everyone believe. Mrs. Queen always liked her, but she treated Mrs. Queen differently than she did others in this house, including Oliver.”

Felicity felt her mouth drop open. Raisa gave her a meaningful look. “All is not gold that glitters,” she said. “He deserves better.” She stood and gathered her plate to take to the counter. “Don’t you do that, Oliver,” she said. “You leave that to me.”

  


>>\--->

  


“I’m not sure she likes me,” Felicity said. They were making their way down the long hall of the east wing to Oliver’s suite.

“Raisa?” he said. “No, she does.”

“How do you know?”

Oliver shot her a quick look. “She told you the Marina story.”

“The Marina _story_? You mean it’s not true?” Felicity asked.

“It’s true,” he said. “She doesn’t tell it that often, though.”

Felicity found this explanation less than scientific. “That doesn’t mean she likes me.”

Oliver dimpled.

“What?” she asked.

“Raisa doesn’t mess around about women anymore,” Oliver said. “If she doesn’t like someone, she lets me know. She finds a hundred things she needs me to do right then or,” he laughed, “once, when I brought home Danielle Butterworth, she faked a stroke. She was very convincing. My mother called an ambulance.”

Felicity laughed out loud. “Really?”

“Really,” Oliver said. “Raisa’s great, but don’t underestimate her. She’s been the housekeeper here for ten years. My mother always clashed with the housekeepers. We went through several before Raisa. The two of them have an understanding now. Raisa even goes to see her every week in Iron Heights.”

“She does?”

“She does,” Oliver said. “It’s even more impressive when you know her sister was my dad’s mistress.”

“What?”

“Yeah. Lara wasn’t just my dad’s translator. I’m pretty sure I have a half-sister in Moscow.”

“You have a half-sister in Russia? And your mom knows that and still likes Raisa.”

“They should give her the Nobel Peace Prize. She’s that good,” Oliver said. “She didn’t like me seeing Laurel. She was right about Danielle Butterworth too.” He laughed and shook his head.

“Do I even want to know?” Felicity asked.

“No, but I’ll tell you,” he said. “She was eight weeks pregnant and looking for someone rich to pin it on.”

Felicity shuddered. “Is anyone in your social circle normal?”

“You are,” he said. “Sort of.”

Felicity whacked him in the chest. “Ow,” he said. He didn’t look like he was hurt.

“Oh, poor baby,” she said, but she slid her arm underneath his and kissed the spot where she’d hit him. “Here, I’ll kiss it better.”

He lowered his head and touched his mouth with his index finger.

“Oh, is that where it hurts?” she asked, smiling. “Okay.” She craned her neck up, but he leaned his shoulder against a closed doorway and pulled her against him. Their lips met, and he deepened the kiss, turning her body into the door. She felt its carved panels push into her ass as he muscled his large body into hers. With one hand, he held her hip, stroking it with his his thumb.

“I didn’t hit you that hard,” she said breathlessly after a minute.

“I have some older injuries,” he said, sucking her lower lip back into his mouth. His breath tasted like garlic from the hummus he’d eaten with dinner, but she still wanted to lick the entire cavity of his mouth, suck on his tongue. Bite him. Her nipples hardened against his chest.

“I’ve seen them,” she said after a full minute. “I think you need more than just kissing for those.”

“Better get to it, then,” he said. He reached with his other hand and turned the doorknob. The door fell open to reveal a dark chamber. The light from the hallway illuminated only the first few feet.

“This is your room?” she asked.

He grabbed her up in his arms, and she squawked in surprise. “This is where the bodies are buried. So to speak.”  

 

 

>>\--->

 

 

“Get back over here,” Oliver said. “I’m not done with you yet.” He was laying on his back with his arms folded behind his head trying to get his breath even again. Felicity could be surprisingly aerobic in bed for such a sedentary person.

She was sitting on the floor in front of his dresser, going through the drawers one by one. “Yeah? Well, I’m done with you,” she said, not looking up. “For now.” She lifted up some underwear and a couple of pressed handkerchiefs. “There’s nothing in here. Not a single body.” She sounded disgruntled, and he found it adorable.

There was nothing in this room he was afraid for her to see. There was nothing in this entire house, in fact. All of his worst secrets were in his head; they weren’t documented. He understood what she really wanted, though: a guarantee that he wasn’t going to run away with her nonexistent sister, break her heart, and leave her a object of public scorn. Since there was no way to prove he wouldn’t ever do that again, he’d have to give her something else.

“Cold,” he said.

She turned her head and looked at him. “Cold? I’m not cold. I know there aren’t any real bodies. It’s just an expression.” She put her weight on her hands, crawled a couple of feet, and gave a little smile.

He grinned at her. “Warmer.”

She got it then, in a second, his genius girl, and her awareness of the game changed her posture from languid to alert. She crawled closer to the bed.

“Cooler,” he said.

She stood up and came to him, sliding up onto the bed and between his legs. “If this is another sex game,” she said, “I’m not going to be amused.” But she kissed her way up his thigh anyway and pulled his cock into her mouth. She didn’t have to worry yet. He was still recovering from everything she’d done to him.

“Cool. Very cool,” he said, palming one of her breasts anyway because it was so pert and cute.

She got off the bed and walked in a slow circle around the room. “Cool. Warmer,” he said as she moved closer to his desk. “Warm, very warm, hot.” She put a hand on it. “Scorching.”

Felicity looked intrigued. She reached for the first drawer and found it locked. Her lower lip shaped itself into a small pout - unconsciously, he thought.

“The key’s on the underside of the desk behind the front drawer.” He watched her feel for it, and then her face as she found it and pulled it out. “That will open all of them.”

She took the key and opened the upper right drawer where he’d placed the stack of photo albums earlier. “Ooh,” she said, her mouth forming a long oval. “Blackmail material.” She flipped open the first one, and her lips pressed together. “This is baby you,” she said.

He didn’t say anything, he just nodded even though she wasn’t looking at him anymore. She was tracing her finger down the page.

“I can tell because that’s obviously Moira,” she said. “Can I call her Moira? It feels weird saying ‘your mother’ or ‘your mom’ all the time.” She turned the page. “Oh, now this isn’t fair.” She held it up to show him. “These look like outtakes from a Gerber Baby photo session.” She narrowed her eyes at him. “You left these here on purpose.”

He sat up, leaned back against the headboard, and put his hands up.

“There’s nothing in this desk that’s going to be even remotely shocking, is there?” she asked.

“Those photo albums go all the way through high school,” he said. “There are yearbooks too.”

“But no bodies.”

He shook his head slowly from side to side, and she sighed. She closed the photo album up and put it on the desk. “I’m going to examine this at length later, don’t worry.” Then she came and lay down beside him, putting her head on his chest.

“Tell me something - anything - about you that I can’t get online,” she said in a low, soft voice. “I know you. I know I know you, but sometimes you are so closed off and mysterious that it feels like there are big parts of you I don’t. Tell me something?”

He put his hand in her hair and stroked it all the way down, feeling the long strands catch in the tiny scratches in his hand. She was tugging on him; every part of her, inside and out, was. She didn’t understand her own pull, but he did, and it made him feel like bolting or at the very least, shutting down completely. He took a deep breath and counted back from five.

“I know why Raisa told you the story about Marina,” he said finally.

She looked intrigued. “Why?”

“Because she knows how much I like you,” he said.

“You like me,” she said, her voice flat. “That’s not exactly a state secret. I kind of guessed.”

“That’s not the secret,” he said. “The secret is _how much_. Raisa knows. She’s seen how much I haven’t been here lately, and she wants me to know she’s welcoming you.”

He felt her let out her breath. “You really like me,” she said.

“I really do,” he said. He pressed a kiss to her forehead. “I like you more than just about anything.”

She looked up at him, her eyes round and dark. Then she frowned at him. “Can’t she just _say_ that? Does it have to be in code?”

He laughed. “No one just _says_ anything in this house. You’ll see. Raisa keeps secrets, my mom keeps secrets, I keep them too. It’s the Queen way.”

She put a hand on his Bratva tattoo and fingered the design. He felt her breath whoosh as she blew it out. “You’re not going to break my heart, are you?” she asked. “Because I think you could. That’s _my_ secret.”

He wrapped his arm around her and curled her against him. “I’ll do everything I can not to,” he said.

She smiled at him unsteadily. “Okay,” she said.

“Okay?”

“Okay.” She pushed her lips out, and he leaned over to kiss them, knowing it was a promise, and hoping against everything that he could keep it.

 

>>\--->

 

A heavy feeling woke Felicity up, and she blinked her eyes in the darkness trying to get her bearings. Oliver was laying half on top of her, and she wiggled out from under his weight. He reached out a hand in his sleep. She kissed it and eased away and off the bed. She had to pee. If she wasn’t careful she was going to get honeymoon cystitis from all this sex, and that _would_ be a tragedy.

She could see the bathroom door now as her eyes adjusted, and she reached down on the floor for the robe that had been laid out in the room for her. Raisa _was_ putting out the welcome mat, she realized. Felicity wasn’t sure how she felt about that. Should you have sex in your boyfriend’s parents’ mansion when his mother was away in prison and his second mom was sleeping in another wing? Her Vegas girl’s social etiquette was inadequate for these moments, but it felt a little weird.

After she finished in the bathroom, she realized she was hungry. With the revelations dropping fast and furiously at dinner, she’d barely eaten, but she knew there were leftovers in that enormous fridge in the kitchen. She carefully opened and closed the door so that Oliver wouldn’t be disturbed. He slept so poorly in general, she didn’t want him to lose any more sleep.

The house was enormous, but the layout wasn’t complicated, and she followed the same path they’d taken up here back to the kitchen. The hall lights were on, but dimmed now. She wondered if they were on a timer or if they were still on only because she was here.

At night and empty, the kitchen was spooky with its high, dark ceiling and its bank of dark glass overlooking the shadowed courtyard. Maybe she shouldn’t be nosing around here, even for leftovers. The fridge was large enough to hide cadavers in after all. She shook her head and shored herself up. That chicken was calling her name, and they would be together soon. She opened the fridge door, blinking at the sudden high beam fluorescence, and scanned the shelves. There they were, the take out bags. Pulling them out, she turned in the direction of the table they’d eaten at - only to find a woman staring at her. She gasped and dropped the bags.

The woman was thin, blond, and silent. She had the same stealthy energy and purpose Oliver possessed, and Felicity knew instantly who she was. “Sara?” she asked. “What are you doing here?”


	13. A Woman Shrouded in Violence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Felicity has an unexpected talk with Sara, who she discovers is living in Oliver's house.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here it is finally: an update! Hope you enjoy it. I got to incorporate one of my long-held headcanons about Sara in it. The plot thickens!

“Sara?” Felicity repeated, feeling silly. The kitchen was so dark and cavernous, though. It really did feel like an ancient castle in here, and the other woman looked like a specter in the glow from the refrigerator. Her face only, as the rest of her was clothed in black.

“Felicity,” Sara said, nodding. She knelt down to pick the takeout bags up and started to give them to Felicity, but then hesitated and took them over to the counter where she laid them down.

“Y-you know who I am?” Felicity asked. Her hand moved to her chest where she could feel her heart beating.

“Yes, I’ve been here a few weeks,” Sara said, as if that explained everything. She leaned a hip against the counter and then opened a cupboard and pulled out a plate. “Do you need utensils?”

Here? Did she mean in Starling or in this house? “Um,” Felicity said, “I think there are still some in the bag. I don’t want to mess up the kitchen.”

“Raisa won’t mind,” Sara said, “but we can clean up.”

We?

Sara peered into the bag and then pulled out the boxes. “Do you want these heated up?” She made a jabbing motion with her hand and the outline of the inside of a microwave was suddenly visible.

“I don’t know. Uh, maybe the sandwich,” Felicity said.

“Okay,” Sara said. She put several sandwiches from the box on the plate and pushed a couple of buttons. The microwave came to life. “Get something to drink,” she said.

Felicity turned back to the fridge. There was a glass bottle of chocolate milk on the shelf in front of her, and she reached for it.

“Not the chocolate milk, though,” Sara said behind her. “Raisa buys that for Ollie.”

 _Ollie_? “What if he’s not here?” He hadn’t been here for... a week. Was that right? She counted in her head. Yes, he’d spent every night at her apartment for at least a week.

“She tosses it,” Sara said. “The strawberry’s for Thea, but there should be bottled water and soda. Or I could make tea.” The microwave dinged, and Sara opened it, took out the plate, and brought it over to the table with the boxed salad. She flipped a light on, sat down, and gestured to the other chair.

Felicity grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge, brought it to the table and took her first real look at the woman Oliver had run away with six years ago. She caught her breath. Felicity had seen pictures of Sara online, but she was unprepared for the woman up close. She was… Felicity supposed the word was ‘luminous.’ Sara’s blue eyes sparked, and her hair shone gold in the lamplight. Her cheeks were round and rosy, and there was a dimple in her chin.

After her senior year in college, Felicity had gone to Paris to congratulate herself for plowing through six years of college in three, and in the Louvre she’d seen a painting: **The Loves of Paris and Helen** by Jacques-Louis David. It had transfixed her. She’d adored Greek mythology since she was little. For a high school history class she’d once written a paper defending Helen of Troy, convinced there had to be more to her than “the face that launched a thousand ships.”

The Helen in the Louvre painting hadn’t been a war bringer, but soft and tender, leaning into her lover, Paris, the man who’d taken her away from everything she’d been forced to do or be. Helen, princess of Sparta, the product of Zeus’s rape of Leda. Helen the girl, kidnapped at age nine by Theseus and raped, then presented to Menelaus as wife. Helen the woman, taken by Paris and then hated by the Trojans who bled to keep her. This woman whom kings and warriors and rich men would destroy everything to possess: Helen.

The Sara sitting in front of Felicity was soft and lovely like the Helen in the painting, but her expression was sad and knowing, the queen after her lover was dead and the bodies at her feet had been counted. Felicity frowned. She wondered if it still weighed on her, what she and Oliver had done to Laurel.

“How did you know I was here?” Felicity asked.

Sara’s eyes flicked to the ceiling. “You and Ollie weren’t exactly silent.”

Felicity remembered the previous hour and felt her cheeks engulf with heat.

“And Raisa told me,” Sara finished. Her lips twitched in a smile. “It’s nice to meet you.”

“You know who I am?”

Sara nodded as she reached out for one of the sandwiches. “Ollie’s assistant - at Queen Consolidated…and his side gig. You’re the tech part of his team.” She peeled back the layer of paper and bit into the pita bread. “Mmm,” she said.

This was the most unexpected conversation Felicity had ever had. “His team?”

“His vigilante team,” Sara said. “He’s the Hood, the Arrow. Whatever.”

“Oliver told you that?”

Sara tilted her head at Felicity. “No,” she said. “He didn’t have to. I met him while he was out on one of his nighttime excursions.” She put the sandwich down. “Your secret’s safe with me. That’s why I wanted to talk to you. I want to know how close you are to catching the Starling City Rapist.”

Felicity closed her mouth. How was this happening? Was Oliver okay with this? Would he even want her to talk to Sara? As she was thinking this, she heard a tread behind her, and there he was, big and solid, half-dressed, gliding in behind her and putting his hand on her shoulder. It was warm. He reached down and took a bite out of her sandwich.

“Sara,” he said, after he’d swallowed. “What are you doing?”

“Talking to Felicity,” she said. “I want to be a part of your team for this. You’re taking too long to put this asshole down.”

  


>>\--->

  


Felicity concentrated on her tabouli. She chewed slowly and let the tartness of the lemon juice and the sharp, bitter taste of the parsley explode in her mouth. It was good, this salad. She was going to focus on eating it and not get upset.

Beside her Oliver leaned back in his chair, one hand holding his bottle of chocolate milk. Sara was talking about how she had experience in a lab working with chemicals and experimental drugs, and part of Felicity’s mind was nodding along, appreciating that, but another part of her wanted to know just how long this other woman had been staying in Oliver’s house. He must be okay with it, right?  If she was here late at night. Why hadn’t he told her Sara was _living in his house_?

“I need to know what you know about this guy and if you have any samples of the drug he’s using,” Sara finished. “You probably don’t have the right lab equipment, but I can figure something out or Ollie can buy it.”

Felicity put her fork down and gave Oliver what she hoped was a meaningful look. He raised his eyebrows and held her gaze. His look was patient, understanding, and it gave her permission to decide whatever she wanted. That was when Felicity realized that she was in danger of prioritizing her position with Oliver and her place on the team over preventing more women from getting raped. She swallowed.

“We do have a sample of the chemical,” Felicity said. “Why did you decide to talk to me - _to us_ \- about it tonight?”

“There was a stampede at Uccello’s a few hours ago,” Sara said. “Some guy thought it would be a fun prank to spray a group of girls with water. In the resulting stampede one of them got crushed.” She looked angry. “Also, I can’t read anymore about what’s happening and not do anything.”

Felicity nodded. She understood that. She looked at Oliver again, and he nodded. “What do you know about him?”

“What’s online,” Sara said. “That he sprays women with a ‘weaponized aphrodisiac,’ rapes them, and posts their nude, marked up bodies online. The cops can’t trace him because he doesn’t leave digital fingerprints. Why can’t they trace his receipts from the motel rooms he uses?”

“He doesn’t pay for the rooms,” Felicity said. “He finds empty rooms and uses them. We’re not sure how. He must hack the individual databases of the hotels and motels in Starling.”

“And there isn’t any DNA evidence?” Sara asked.

“They have too much DNA evidence,” Felicity said. “He uses high traffic hotels. There’s so much hair and fiber that it’s meaningless. I don’t think his DNA is in a registry anyway.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “It’s not entirely true that he doesn’t leave a trail. He leaves them. They’re just fake. After the last rape, the FBI traced him to Jenna’s Valeri’s home.” Jenna was a vocal New York City feminist who had been discussing the implications of these rapes and the consent issues the use of an aphrodisiac raised online. Or at least she had been until the FBI brought her in for questioning.

Sara’s mouth nearly disappeared. “That’s sick.”

“There are several ways groups or movements get support,” Felicity said. “They can raise discourse about basic morals and rights, play up the good that their group does, or they can be attacked by another group. The last way is the quickest and most effective. But when Red Beard introduced the idea that these rapes might be a hoax, he undermined both the outrage and Valeri’s credibility. It was evil but smart. Once you introduce doubt into the mind of the public, it’s hard to erase. That’s who we’re dealing with. We know the rapes have happened, though, and that at least one man is behind them. I’ve seen him.”

“Red Beard?” Sara asked.

“He doesn’t really have a beard,” Oliver said. “At the time he attacked Felicity, he had big, reddish sideburns. That’s what she’s been calling him.”

“He attacked you?” Sara looked angry.

“We tried to draw him out,” Felicity said, “but it went wrong, and we…” She looked at Oliver. “We got sprayed.”

Understanding dawned on Sara’s face. “Both of you, and you were together? That explains a lot.”

Felicity tried to keep her irritation off her face. That explained what? Why they were together?

Sara’s face became serious. “I’m sorry that happened. Was it awful? Do you remember anything? About the rapist, I mean.”

“It wasn’t awful,” Felicity said slowly. In her peripheral vision, she saw Oliver’s lips twitching, and she recalled a few memorable sensations of that first night together - the sound of the drywall cracking behind her, the feel of cool leather smashed up against her thighs, the smell of the sweat that pooled in the middle of his chest when he was--

Felicity cleared her throat. “I remember a few details about what he looked like, but it was dark, and he was pretty average. Short. I was almost as tall as him in my heels. His hair was dark. I’m sure his sideburns are gone by now. Do you remember anything else, Oliver?”

The look he gave her made her cross her legs. “Not really,” he said. “I might recognize him in a line up, but he got me in the face with the spray as soon as I got close. He had kind of a high shriek.”

Sara looked thoughtful. “You said you thought it was at least one man?”

Oliver put the glass bottle on the table. “Felicity thinks one person couldn’t do both the chemistry and the hacking.”

“And you think she’s right?” Sara leaned her forearms on the table. The motion triggered a memory of movement in her head, and Felicity realized that Sara had the same lithe panther movements as Oliver and the same stillness. Her black clothes clashed with her baby doll looks in the same way Oliver’s did. The two of them belonged in a painting.

“She’s right,” Oliver said. “Always assume she’s right. She’s smarter than both of us combined.”

“Why hasn’t reddit been able to stop him?” Sara asked.

“They closed down his account, and the FBI examined it,” Felicity said, “but he’s still posting whenever he wants. Only for short periods of time, though. He puts up a post for five minutes and then takes it down.”

“How does anyone see it then?”

“Screen shots - the redditors take screen shots and they go viral on Twitter and elsewhere. Once they’ve gone viral, it’s impossible to tell who’s who - or who’s supporting his disgusting mission and who’s just outraged,” Felicity said. “I think he’s still selling the drug too. He has a presence on the dark web, but he’s careful there too.”

Sara nodded. “If he can synthesize the drug easily, there’s no limit to how much money he could make off of it.” She gave Oliver a long look. “Where do you operate?”

“In the basement of Verdant, my club,” he said. “Come tomorrow, and I’ll give you a sample of the drug to test.”

Sara pushed her chair back. “Why not now?”

Oliver looked at Felicity. “We have meetings in the morning and need more than four hours of sleep. I can’t get you access to any lab equipment until then anyway. It can wait that long. We’re going back to bed.” He stood up and put his hand on Felicity’s chair.

She felt simultaneously relieved and annoyed. Annoyed that he’d ended the conversation and then annoyed that she felt annoyed. “I should clean this up,” she said, picking up her plate and bringing it to the counter. She put the empty boxes back into the bag and then looked for the trash.

“Here,” Sara said. She opened a tall drawer that looked like a cupboard and threw it in the container inside, then she opened another cabinet that turned out to be the dishwasher and put the plate in there.

“Don’t run it with one plate,” Oliver said, smiling slightly.

“Oh, I wouldn’t,” Sara said and laughed. “I learned that a long time ago.” Her wide smile showed bright white teeth, then she straightened. “See you in the morning,” she said and disappeared into the dark hallway.

Oliver walked over and put a hand on Felicity’s hip. “She can help,” he said.

Felicity stiffened. “I think we were doing fine on our own.”

“We haven’t gotten Red Beard yet,” he said.

“You don’t call him Red Beard,” Felicity said. “Don’t try to charm me. I didn’t sign on to expanding the team.”

“You didn’t?” He held her gaze, and she knew she was lying. She knew he knew as well.

“She heard us having sex,” she said and then clamped her mouth shut. Why had she said that?

Oliver nodded. “Mmhmm.”

“Is that all you’re going to say: ‘Mmhmm’?” She worked to keep her voice low and calm.

“It’s just sex. Sara’s had sex.”

Unspoken words tiptoed around in the space between them: Sara and Oliver had had sex.

“ _It’s just sex_ ,” she repeated.

“Right.”

“That’s all it is, sex?” She narrowed her eyes at him, and he tensed in recognition of the trap. She saw in his eyes when he realized the ground below him was no longer firm, but then the look sharpened.

“This is part of Sara’s crusade. It’s why she’s been taking down men in the Glades. Don’t take it personally. She’s not criticizing you. If you’d seen her on the Amazo…”

“The Amazo?” She straightened. Was he actually going to tell her something about his years away?

Oliver looked away and sighed. “The second year I was on the island, Slade and I encountered these people on a boat - the Amazo. Their leader was a Professor Anthony Ivo. He was doing research on a bioweapon the Japanese had developed during World War II. He captured me, and that’s when I found out he had Sara.”

“I thought she died when the Gambit went down?”

Oliver nodded. “I did too. I was sure she was dead, but she told me that she crawled on a piece of the wreckage and floated until the crew of the Amazo found her.” He met Felicity’s eyes. “The crew of that ship were soldiers for hire. They tortured people, and I think they hurt her. She never told me, but she wasn’t the same as she’d been before.”

“You think they raped her.”

He gave a short nod. “I think so. Her relationship with Ivo wasn’t normal either.”

“Why didn’t you tell Laurel and her father that Sara was alive when you came back to Starling? They should have known she survived the shipwreck. They’ve blamed you for all these years for killing her, and she wasn’t even dead.” Sometimes it seemed like Oliver _wanted_ people to hate him.

“I didn’t tell them because it was my fault that she went down on the Gambit and because she told me to tell them she died in the shipwreck. Then later I thought she had died again. I was positive that she couldn’t have survived the fight with Ivo, and I thought it was better that her family didn’t know about the other things she...went through.”

Felicity put a hand to her temple. “So this is the _second time_ she came back from the dead?”

Oliver shrugged. “I should be dead too, but here I am. You and Diggle brought me back yourselves last year. Some of us are harder to kill, I guess.”

“How long are you going to wait until you tell them?”

“Tell them?”

“Laurel and Lance? That Sara’s alive?”

“I’m not,” Oliver said. “She can tell them when she’s ready.”

“And until then? You’re just going to let them think she’s still dead? You don’t think they deserve to know she’s alive? To see her again and talk to her?”

“It’s not my decision, Felicity,” Oliver said. “It’s Sara’s. I can’t make it for her. Lance and Laurel have already grieved her. It doesn’t hurt them more to wait until she comes around.”

 _If_ she came around. “Why is she living here?” The question slipped out.

Oliver stepped back and dropped his hand. “She needed to be somewhere safe where no one would judge her. This seemed as good a place as any. I haven’t been here anyway, and Raisa doesn’t mind the company.”  

“And you never thought about telling me?”

“It’s not permanent,” Oliver said, “and it doesn’t affect you.”

“It doesn’t affect me? Your former girlfriend is living in your house.”

Oliver rubbed his hand over hand forehead. “Look, she has nightmares. She doesn’t sleep. She’s up and out at all hours. Raisa knows the drill on that, so this is a good place for her. Sara wasn’t my girlfriend, and whatever you might think, she isn’t my sexual kryptonite. She’s a friend who needs some help.”

And just like that, Felicity’s outrage dissipated. What was she doing? How could she think about making this thing with Sara about her? A rape survivor was trying to pull herself together, and she was jealous? Insecure? She wasn’t going to be that girl - the girl who fought another girl over a man, over _Oliver Queen_. Her life was not going to turn into this.

“The stampede at Uccello’s is a bad sign,” she said finally. “Things are only going to get worse until we catch this guy.”

“We’ll find him,” Oliver said. “Sara really can help us. Let’s go back to bed.” He gestured to the hall with his arm.

“I think I’ll go back to my apartment,” Felicity said. Despite her resolution, she didn’t want Sara hearing anything else she did, even if it were just snoring. She waited for Oliver to say he was coming with her, but he didn’t.

He gave her a long look and then finally nodded. “Do what you need to do,” he said. He leaned over and kissed her cheek.

She pressed a hand against his face and his whiskers abraded both her palm and the skin near her mouth. She wanted to hold him there until he realized he was making the wrong call, but she let him go and he straightened.

“Goodbye,” she whispered and then headed for the door.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>   
>  This is the painting referenced in this chapter, **The Loves of Paris and Helen**
> 
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> 


	14. In the Confusion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> While Oliver and Felicity learn to navigate around the issues Sara's return raises for them, a new, confusing incident on Starling University's campus creates more problems for the team.
> 
> I'd like to dedicate this chapter to @notlefthanded who went recently left me so many comments on my fic chapters as s/he read them. Thanks so much for the encouragement!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know it's been a long time since Pollen Vector was updated, but I hope you enjoy watching the plot thicken with the rapist and with Oliver and Felicity's relationship.

It was still fully dark when her alarm went off the next morning. Felicity nudged Oliver to turn it off, and her elbow meet nothing but air. She squinted in confusion, reached for her phone on the side table, slid the alarm off, and leaned back on her elbow. She was lying in the center of the bed with one leg flung over her big pillow.

Oliver wasn’t here. He wasn’t here. He’d been here every morning of the past week, but today he wasn’t.

Oliver loved to have sex in the morning. It was kind of his thing. The alarm would go off, and he’d snake his arm around her waist, pulling her back against the firm muscles of his abdomen. Then he’d nuzzle her spine as he nestled himself against her backside and slid his cock inside. She didn’t have to move. She didn’t have to do anything except feel his warm breath and stubble in the hollow where her shoulder met her neck. He liked to cup her breasts as eased in. He’d bite her collarbone and pinch her nipples at the same time. It drove her crazy.

He wouldn’t be rushed. QC didn’t matter, and the city was still mostly asleep so he’d fuck her nice and slow, in and out, covering her body and pushing her firmly into the mattress as he got closer and closer to his release. “Felicity,” he’d whisper before that long groan. Then he’d kiss her shoulder, and run his fingernails up and down her spine gently.

She’d told him she wasn’t a morning person. The first couple of times she’d worried about her morning breath and her bed head. After the third or fourth morning, she’d realized it wasn’t the sex for him - it wasn’t just sex, at least. He was bringing himself - them - to life with touch and sensation. He wanted to feel good. He wanted her to feel good too. He was gathering his strength for the day. So she’d learned to set her alarm a half an hour earlier, but she couldn’t manage to get upset about the lost sleep.

She squeezed her thighs together and blew out a breath. There was no use torturing herself with this. She’d wanted to be alone last night. Or, rather, she’d wanted Oliver to beg her forgiveness for not telling her about Sara living with him and then try to make it up to her with chocolate, tech, and Farscape DVD sets.

He had not gotten that hint. The hint had flown way, way over his gorgeous head. He probably wasn’t the begging type, anyway. He was the obtuse type. What kind of guy set his ex-lover up in his own house when he was _infamous_ for cheating on his girlfriend with said ex-lover?

She frowned. Turn that around: what kind of woman hooked up with a guy like that and expected him to change? An idiot. Not that she thought he was sleeping with Sara. She didn’t really think that. She didn’t.

She slid her legs over the side of the bed, unzipping Oliver’s gray hoodie with one hand. She did not think that. That did _not_ mean she was going to give him a pass on this because it absolutely was not fine. She might be a modern, independent woman, but she was not sharing him with Sara. Or anyone else. Ever.

On the other hand, despite all of the great sex, did she really think she could really keep Oliver long term? He was a billionaire ninja vigilante guy. She could hardly compete with supermodels. Underneath her new clothes and better makeup, she was a woman whose brain spun too fast if she didn’t keep it fully occupied all the time. Maybe she should take this as a sign that it wasn’t meant to be.

He was so hot, though. Such a fantastic lover. And strong and brave and kind. He was also a man with dozens, probably hundreds, of secrets he was not interested in sharing.

Felicity stood up. She didn’t want to be late thinking about things she couldn’t resolve. She showered quickly, blew out her hair and fastened it in a French twist, then found a long skirt and one of her old sweaters in the back of her closet.  She zipped up her high leather boots, and grabbed her purse.

The knob on the front door was turning before her hand touched it, and, without thinking, she flipped the deadbolt to keep it closed.

“Felicity?” Oliver’s voice came through the door. “Can I come in? I brought you coffee.”

“Um, thanks,” Felicity said in an overly chirpy voice. “I’m just, uh… I’m still getting ready.”

“Uh...okay,” Oliver said, sounding confused. The doorknob stilled.

“Can you leave the drink there?” she asked. _What was she doing? Why didn’t she just open the door?_ She could smell the vanilla aroma of the coffee, and she needed it. She needed to see him too.

“Dig’s out in the car,” Oliver said. “We stopped to pick you up.”

Felicity glanced out the window and saw the long, black Mercedes parked at the curb. “I think--” she said, “I think I’m going to drive myself today. I have errands I need to do at lunch.”

“At lunch,” he said. Then, after minute: “Is something wrong?”

 _Yes, something’s wrong, you sexy, coffee delivering dolt_ , she thought, but she didn’t say it. She watched the doorknob instead and heard the slight rattle it made when his hand released it. Then she said, “I’ll talk to you about it later.”

“Felicity?” he asked finally.

“Oh, there’s the microwave,” she said. “I gotta get that,” she said. “I’ll see you at QC. Don’t forget we have a meeting with the regulatory commission at 10.”

“A meeting at 10,” he repeated, “with the regulatory commission. Alright. I’ll see you there. You’re sure--”

“I’m sure,” she said. “I’ll be there soon.” And then she went to the kitchen and opened up the microwave, making a show of closing it loudly. Still he waited. A full minute passed before she saw the brushy tips of his expensive haircut make its way past her window and down her front sidewalk.

After a few more minutes, she walked to the door to get the coffee. She inhaled the vanilla smell, put the cup to her lips, and took a long drink. She needed the caffeine to get her head on straight. Today was going to be a long day.

  


>>\--->

  


In her office, Felicity went through her morning routine, brought up the minutes from the last meeting with the regulatory commission, read a couple of articles about the stampede at Uccello’s, printed all of it out for Oliver, and put everything on his desk. Then she got herself more coffee and began a little light detective work into Sara Lance’s past.

Most of it was predictable. Sara had graduated in the middle of her class at St. Andrew’s Academy, the same school Oliver and Laurel had attended. She’d been on the cheerleading squad and had won some medals for gymnastics at the state level. She’d also run cross country. She’d had a scrape with the law in college and had gotten arrested for possession of a controlled substance at age 20. Before the Gambit, she’d done two years of general coursework at a state school, and had declared her major to be sports management. Her grades were again average. She’d been tagged in the spring break Facebook photos of a few friends.

Felicity drew the line at snooping in Sara’s medical records, not that she expected much there. There was nothing in any of this information to indicate that before her trip with Oliver Sara had been anything other than a normal girl with a regular social life. She’d even done some volunteering at a women’s shelter in Starling City. She’d worked as a lifeguard during the summers.

Of course after the Gambit had gone down, there’d been an explosion of press interest in her life, but the worst the reporters could dig up was already in the headline: she’d died on a clandestine cruise with her sister’s boyfriend. After 2008, there was nothing more about Sara except the yearly In Memoriam her family had run in the Starling City Sentinel. The same happy, young blonde looked out from all six photos.

None of that gave Felicity either peace of mind or leverage, and she tapped her pen on the desk in annoyance with herself. By now Oliver had arrived and was sitting in his office, giving her surreptitious looks and, eventually, longer quizzical stares.

The 10 o’clock meeting with the official from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission dragged on until 1 PM, solving only half of QC’s current difficulties regarding the development of their new gamma stereotactic device, an important development in the company’s embryonic medical device catalog. While the head of R&D tried to play hardball on revisions to the prototype, Felicity made sure to keep her body language aloof. It was hard work. Oliver smelled really good, and he was wearing a navy wool pinstripe suit with that azure silk tie that made his eyes blaze a radioactive blue. He knew what the tie did to his eyes and to her too. He’d probably worn it on purpose. She crossed her legs under the table and cursed the drug they’d been sprayed with.

After the meeting, while Oliver shook hands with the commissioner and his assistant, Felicity gathered up her files and ducked out. When she reached her office eight floors up, she saw Sara sitting in the chair opposite her desk. Sara stood and turned at the sound of Felicity’s footsteps. She was wearing a curly brown wig and an indigo pantsuit, but there was no disguising her intensity or focus. The light from the sconces in the vestibule created a reflection of Felicity superimposed over Sara’s silhouette in the glass door. As Felicity approached it, the image of her in the glass got larger and larger, but before she could get to her full size, Sara pushed the door open. “I’ve been waiting for you,” she said.

Felicity bypassed Sara and put her stuff down on her desk. She looked down and saw that her knit skirt had snagged, and there was a snarl of pulling thread above her knee now. She took a deep breath, and asked, “What can I do for you, Sara?”

“I have a list of the equipment I need to analyze the drug,” Sara said, handing Felicity a sheet of paper.

“Alright,” Felicity said, sliding into her office chair and pulling up a new window on her computer. “This is probably expensive.” She had a better idea of the costs they might be looking at, having just sat through that R&D meeting.

Sara didn’t blink. “Oliver can afford it.”

“Maybe,” Felicity said. “QC’s bottom line isn’t what it used to be.” She tapped some keys and then turned the monitor so that Sara could see. “See? They don’t even list prices for these on the manufacturer’s site. You have to request a quote, but it’s quite possible QC already has this equipment.” She closed that window and then opened up one for the QC server. It took her several minutes to find an up-to-date inventory, but eventually she did. “There are several GC-MS instruments in our laboratory. These others are there too.” She ran her finger down Sara’s list.

“I won’t be able to use them, though,” Sara said. “They don’t let people walk in and use a GC-MS instrument.”

Felicity checked the schedule. “I can get you clearance through the system. The lab closes at 9 PM. I’m sure there are people who stay late working on various projects, but I’ll send the department a memo about the entire floor being cleaned to make sure it’s cleared out.”

“No one will notice it wasn’t cleaned?” Sara asked.

“I can send a memo to housekeeping as well,” Felicity said. “It probably can’t be today, but I can schedule it this week, maybe even tomorrow. Is that soon enough?”

Sara shrugged. “It will have to be.” Then she smiled, and her face grew immediately softer. “I couldn’t have done it any sooner anyway. Thank you.”

The elevator in the lobby sounded again, and over Sara’s shoulder Felicity saw Oliver walk out into the open space. He opened the door of the outer office, gave them both a glance, and moved toward his office. “Sara,” he said.

Sara turned and raised an eyebrow. Oliver said nothing, but a brief flicker of communication passed over his face. Sara nodded and gave a tiny smile. Felicity worked to keep her stomach from turning all the way over.

Sara took a sticky note from Felicity’s desk and scribbled something on it. She passed it across the desk. “There’s my number. Please call me when you know anything else. Oliver.” She nodded at him, turned on her heel, and was gone.

Oliver gave Felicity a questioning look. “Anything else?”

“I told her I’d try to make the equipment she needs available to her tomorrow night. I have to send some memos. I’ll write them up and get your signature. I think I could figure out how to run the machine myself, but I don’t have the chemistry background to understand the results. You said Sara does?”

“Yes.” He put a hand through his beard. “At least I think so. Ivo had her working on stem-cell genetic research. They were trying to locate a chemical formulation the Japanese were working during World War II. It could transform people into superhuman fighters.”

Felicity gave an involuntary laugh. “Superhuman fighters?”

Oliver’s face was serious. “I wish I could say it was a joke, but the drug existed. It did what it was supposed to, but…”

“But…”

“It had a fatal flaw. Anyone injected with this drug - Mirakuru - became unstable and easily enraged. Basically an uncontrollable monster.”

An uncontrollable monster. She needed more information, but she knew the look on his face too well to think he’d tell her. “Sara analyzed the drug?”

“Probably not. Ivo didn’t have the formula until after she’d left him and joined us, but I think he trained her on how to use the equipment so she could help him analyze and recreate it. I saw part of the set up he had, and the soldiers he had working for him weren’t chemists.”

“You never talk about the island,” she said.

He straightened. “There’s not much to say except what I’ve told you. I thought Sara was dead, but a year after the Gambit sank I saw her again, and eventually I got her away from Ivo.”

“Who did they inject with the Mi-miraku…” she tried to pronounce the name.

“Mirakuru,” Oliver said. “It’s Japanese for ‘miracle.’ They didn’t inject anyone,” he said. “I did. I gave it to Slade Wilson to save his life, and that...ended badly.” He turned back to his office. “I’ve got some work to get through. Give Sara whatever she needs. She’ll crack it.”

“Oliver,” Felicity said and waited for him to turn around, “if she does crack it, then what? Does it matter if we know the exact chemical formulation? It’s not going to stop the rapist.”

He sighed. “I don’t know. We can send the formula to SCPD anonymously.”

“What are they going to do with it? They don’t have a chemist on staff who could work up an antidote. I suppose they might have other sources they can contact.”

“I’ll call them,” Oliver said. “I’ll tell them QC is very invested in keeping this community and its women safe and tell them to notify us if there’s anything we can assist them with.”

Felicity thought that over. “Or you could feed the idea to Isabel. She’d probably love getting the credit for that. Take her to lunch and talk it over with her.”  

“That’s a good idea,” Oliver said, nodding. “I’ll see what she thinks of it.” He reached in his pocket and pulled out his cell phone then walked back into his office.

  
  


>>\--->

  
  


When Oliver returned to his office from his lengthy lunch with Isabel, Felicity was sitting at her desk, looking composed. Her fingers, however, were tapping a pen against her keyboard in a rhythm that sounded like bullets firing. He smiled to himself. Felicity had a weakness, and she had to be feeling it just about now.

Felicity was a night person through and through. She didn’t fully come alive until afternoon. She was up and working much earlier, but creatively - and sexually - the middle of the afternoon was when she really warmed up. In the past weeks since the two of them had been sprayed, his corporate bathroom had gotten so much use in the pre-dinner hours that he now got a reflexive boner at around 3 o’clock every day. He slid one hand down the front of his pants. And there it was, right on schedule.

He slid his jacket off and leaned on his elbow, flexing his bicep through the thin fabric of his dress shirt. He watched her out of the corner of his eye. After a minute he saw her lick her lips, rub her calves together, and then force her attention back to her work.  

Her long skirt and carefully constructed hairdo were obviously “Hands off” signs, meant to keep him at bay, but neither of them would hold up for a minute if he were really focused in breaching her defenses. Touch her in one or two vulnerable spots, and she would fold like a jackknife. Over the desk, over the couch in the bathroom… They both knew that. She was just mad at him, but for no real reason.

Sara had never been his girlfriend. She’d been both more and less than that. What they’d been to each other was still complicated. She’d been his weapon, his friend, his comrade, a fellow survivor, and source of guilt. Now she was a mystery. Oliver didn’t understand why Sara wasn’t telling her family she was alive. He didn’t know what she was running from, but he sensed that it was bad. He could not deny her his help if she needed it. He owed her much more than that.

Felicity had to understand. He wasn’t going to force the issue, but he wasn’t going to ignore what Sara was going through for some kind of...dating etiquette? He glanced at Felicity out of his peripheral vision, but her back was to him now. His wristwatch read 3:15.

He walked back over to his desk and pushed the intercom button on his phone. “Could you come in her?” He watched her narrow her eyes at him, swallow, and then stand up. She grabbed her tablet and made her way to him.

“Please have a seat,” he said. “I’d like you to take notes.”

She pulled up a program on her tablet, and then looked up suspiciously. This was the beginning of one the games they’d play - one of her favorites. This time, though, he wasn’t playing. Exactly. 

“Isabel agreed to contact the SCPD and offer Queen Consolidated’s help. She agreed that it would be an excellent opportunity for the company. We’ll be making any resources we have available, including our lab workers in R&D. Once the chemical has been analyzed, QC will offer a reward to any chemist who can produce an antidote to the spray and demonstrate its effectiveness. Any candidates will have to use our facilities and allow QC to claim and patent the antidote.”

Felicity finished typing and frowned. “That means we won’t need Sara for this.”

“I know, but Isabel didn’t know about that part. This was her idea - as is the antidote.”

“What’s to stop other chemists from coming up with an antidote independently?” Felicity asked.

“Besides the SCPD and the FBI, the QC lab will be the only outside entity with access to the drug.”

“Won’t anyone object to that?”

“Isabel doesn’t think so. The lab equipment, expertise, and time necessary will be expensive. Besides, the antidote won’t really solve the problem anyway.” He shrugged.

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“I mean, the drug is a weapon. As with any new weapon technology, once it’s been invented, other people can replicate it. This won’t be the last weaponized aphrodisiac. Other people will come up with better ways to control people for sex - cheaper, more efficient, faster acting, more targeted. Creating an antidote is good, but there will have to be antidotes to any new formula, and women aren’t going to carry around 10 different ones in their purses. It’s like Rohypnol in that way - it’s much better if you can avoid contact with it, although once we know the chemistry, maybe some kind of generalized antidote could be created.”

Felicity’s face fell. “Then what’s the point?”

Oliver leaned against his desk. “It will lessen the public’s fear if women think there are actions that they can take to keep themselves safe.”

Felicity nodded. “And it will make this guy angry that he’s being thwarted. Lessen his sense of omnipotence. An antidote will help in the short run too - at least until we can catch this guy and educate the public on the threat.”

“Isabel thinks that the reward for the antidote might lure the Starling City Rapist out of hiding.”

“Isabel thinks that?” Felicity looked surprised.

“She’s a woman too,” Oliver said. “I don’t think she’s a fan of this guy. She’s discouraged most of my philanthropic ideas, but she agreed to the funding for this with no argument.”

“I suppose that makes sense,” Felicity said. She tapped a few more times on her tablet and waited. “I’ll work this up for the PR department, and you can proof it.”

Oliver walked to the front of his desk so he was standing facing her. She raised an eyebrow. He crossed his arms. He saw the heat in her eyes flare before she forcefully tamped it down and crossed her legs at the ankles. “You’re mad at me,” he said.

She stared at him coolly. “You know why,” she said.

“Because of Sara.”

She touched the tip of her index finger to her nose twice. “Good guess.”

That annoyed him. She was smarter than him, but he wasn’t stupid. “I’m not sleeping with her. The house is enormous. I don’t see what the problem is. She needs a place to stay where no one will ask questions.”

“And I understand that, Oliver,” Felicity said. “But this is _Sara_.”

“I know. She’s my friend.” He perched on the top of his desk, and raised an eyebrow at her.

“So? Do I have to spell it out? Sara broke you and Laurel up.” Felicity stood up and smacked him in the knee. “Stop trying to manipulate me. I know what time it is. I’m not an animal, and you’re not irresistible.”

He almost went with something flip, but then he realized how mad she was. She stalked back toward her office. “Sara didn’t break us up,” he said instead.

She stopped.

“Sara was how I broke it off, but not why. She knew that. It was never serious.”

“Even if that’s true,” Felicity said, “it doesn’t make it better. They’re sisters, Oliver. Sisters.”

“I’m not talking about that,” he said, “and I don’t want to talk about Laurel either. But if you’re jealous of Sara, you _have no reason to be_. I was at your house every night since she moved in. Every night but last night, and I wanted you to stay with me.”

“Jealous--” Felicity said. “If I’m…” She turned, crossed the distance between them, and poked that same index finger into his sternum with so much force her glasses danced on her nose. “Why didn’t you _tell_ me?”

Oliver felt the situation slipping entirely from his control. He put a hand on her arm. “Don’t be mad,” he said. “We don’t have to fight. I don’t _want_ to fight. Look, I’ll make you feel really good, okay, and then we can forget about this. I’ll stay at your place until Sara leaves. Would that make it better?”

Felicity’s mouth dropped open. “No,” she said, “sex is not going to make this better.” She removed his hand from her body, then opened the glass door and walked back to her desk. Oliver frowned and then spent the rest of the afternoon working his way through the pile of QC business Felicity had laid out for him, wishing that he could sort through his personal life as easily.

  
  


>>\--->

  
  


Oliver met up with Dig at the lair around 6 o’clock to train, and the two of them did pull ups while listening to the a recording of today’s news conference. Alderman Sebastian Blood was describing the city’s reaction: “We’ve been inundated with responses on our social media to Seth Bomer’s arrest, and the people of Starling City are relieved that he is in custody. In addition, Queen Consolidated announced today that it was working with the SCPD to analyze the chemical that was found in Bomer’s possession and determine how it works and if an antidote can be made. We’re very grateful for the assistance and pleased with the progress that has been made in this case.”

Dig turned to Oliver. “Too bad they don’t have the real rapist.”

“He _is_ a real rapist,” Felicity said. “He’s just not the Starling City Rapist. It’s still a good thing they arrested him. Other men will think twice before buying that drug online.”

“True,” Diggle said. “But it might not be only men who want to buy it.”

Felicity scoffed. “You think women are going to pay $10,000 to have sex? No.”

“Not to have sex, necessarily, but men aren’t the only ones who would be interested in getting or keeping someone’s attention, right? It could be used as insurance. Or to hook someone out of your league.”

Oliver met Felicity’s gaze and saw a flush of color rise from her chest and spread up her neck. She turned back to her monitors quickly.

Oliver’s cell phone rang. “Yeah?” he answered.

It was Sara. “There’s something crazy going down on campus at the Gamma Delta house. People are fighting each other on the lawn.”

“Are they frat guys?” Oliver asked.

“They’re younger. They look like high school guys,” Sara said. “And they’re fighting like they’re in battle. It’s almost like the Mirakuru.”

Something clicked in his brain, and he turned to Felicity. “Check if there’s a camera outside the Gamma Delta house at Starling University,” he said.

Felicity quickly tapped some keys. “It’s on the main drag, so probably,” she said. She pulled up a window, and it showed six or seven guys fighting, and a group of young women looking on. They looked scared. One of the guys was slamming another guy into the ground relentlessly. Out of the corner of the frame, another woman appeared, dressed in black. She kicked the assailant in the back of his knee, and he went down. The man on the ground jumped on him and started choking him.

“Get down there,” Felicity said. “But take your gas masks. That’s not a normal fight.” She pointed to the porch of the house. In the window they could see one of the sorority girls stripping the pants off a tall athlete. Thirty seconds later she had her legs around his waist.

“You think it’s the drug,” Oliver said, grabbing his suit.

“It has to be. These parties get wild, but it’s not even 7 o’clock. It’s too early in the evening for this, and anyway, that’s what people who’ve been sprayed look like.” She grimaced. “We should know.”

“And the fighting?” Diggle asked.

“Who knows?” Felicity said. “Whatever it is, use a gas mask, and try to stop them from killing each other. Make Sara wear one too. If she gets sprayed, it will be a complete disaster. I’ll be listening on the comms.”

  


>>\--->  
  


 

It only took Oliver and Dig ten minutes to get to Starling U’s campus, and the fight on the front lawn was nearly under control by then. Sara had incapacitated two other brawlers, and the pair who had been fighting so fiercely were both lying in the grass, one of them unconscious. The other was being tended to by a couple of girls who were trying to staunch the bleeding coming from his broken arm. In the light from the street lamp, Oliver could see puffs of cold air coming from the mouth of one of the girls as she tried not to hyperventilate about the bone poking through the guy’s wrist.

He tossed Sara a gas mask. “Felicity said to wear this,” he said, and then he and Dig headed for the back of the house. Police sirens were wailing in the distance as an ambulance pulled up to the curb.

The Gamma Delta house was a tall, narrow Victorian that took up most of a deep lot enclosed by a tall, wooden fence. The trail along the side of the house was pitted with frozen mud puddles. On the back porch there were a snarl of bikes, an old-fashioned metal swing chair, a couple of recycling bins, and three kegs. Oliver slid his gas mask on over his face, and checked to see that the military-grade air sampling monitor Felicity had given him was on and reading. Then he jostled open the locked back door.  

The door opened onto the kitchen. An overhead light was on, and surprisingly the room wasn’t a disaster. On the counter were a couple of trays filled with pigs in a blanket and other snacks next to two-liter bottles of punch and Sprite. Oliver checked his monitor. The air in here registered clear of contaminants. He heard a commotion in what he assumed to be the pantry, but when he stepped nearer, he realized exactly what was happening in there.

Dig gave him a look. “Should we try to break them up?”

Oliver thought about it and shook his head. “You can recover from sex. We’ve got to find out if anyone is in danger in the house.”

“What if whoever he’s got in there doesn’t want this?” Dig asked.

“He? The drug doesn’t discriminate, and believe me, if she was sprayed, she does. This thing makes your brain hum and your skin itch if you’re not…” he heard Felicity clear her throat on the comms. “Unless we physically separate and handcuff them, we can’t stop this, and they’ll rip their cuff off if we do.”

“It’s that powerful?”

“Yeah,” Oliver said, conscious of his audience. Inside the pantry a female voice laughed and then moaned, and Dig’s shoulders relaxed.  “Come on. We don’t have much time.”

The hall off the kitchen led to a long dining room that was separated from the living room by a wide doorway with open pocket doors. They entered the living room carefully, Dig with his gun drawn. Most of the furniture had been pushed against the walls, and the only light came from the chandelier hanging by the front door. The window by the door was shattered. It was much colder here. A keg was wedged between one of the tables and the fireplace. Broken glass and Solo cups were everywhere, and spilled beer was all over the wood floor.

“Ground zero. The worst damage is here,” Dig said, sniffing. “That’s not the cheap stuff, it’s some kind of craft beer.”

In the far corner, a couple of collapsible tables were on their sides, shielding another couple who had clearly been sprayed, a thin redhead and a beefy looking kid. Diggle went over and kicked the guy in his foot. “Dude, get out of here,” he said. “The police are coming. Find a room at least.”

The pair of them looked up, and the girl laughed and wrapped her legs around the kid’s waist. Both sets of eyes were glassy, but after another kick the kid finally nodded and stood. He lifted the girl and dragged her up the flight of stairs.

On the comms Felicity said, “What’s the monitor reading?”

Oliver walked over to the chandelier and examined the small screen. “It’s picking up something, but not identifying it. It’s probably the spray, although doesn’t the rapist spray his victims outside? This is a lot riskier. Maybe people were smoking?”

“In the house? No. The device recognizes marijuana and nicotine anyway,” Felicity said.

Dig was staring at the keg. “I’m taking a sample of this beer,” he said, picking up a Solo cup. “I’ll see if I can find a container in the kitchen so it won’t spill.”

The sirens grew louder, and red and blue lights flashed brightly in the window glass. “The cops are here,” Oliver said. “I’ll check the upstairs to make sure no one’s hurt. It looks like the fight went outside, and everyone else followed. When you’ve got your beer sample, Dig, head out. I’ll meet you at the van.”

Dig nodded and moved away from the lights and back towards the kitchen.

Oliver took the steep stairway two steps at a time. Like most of the house, the upstairs seemed largely unaffected. This floor was a row of bedrooms off a long hall that paralleled the stair railing. He heard sounds coming from the first door on the right, and saw the couple from downstairs back at it. He closed the door quickly. Is that what he and Felicity had been like? If they hadn’t made it back to her apartment, would they have just...started on the sidewalk?

“Felicity, how long do you think it’s been since this broke out?” he asked into the comms, walking back towards the front of the house and searching the rooms one by one.

“Sara called 25 minutes ago,” Felicity said, “And it was already in progress then. Maybe 35 minutes?”

Most of the doors were at least cracked open, but the last one was closed. He turned the handle to find it locked, so he knocked on the door. “Is anyone in there?” he asked. “I’m not here to hurt you. I’m just checking to make sure everyone in the house is alright.”

A whisper came through the heavy, wooden door. “Are you the police?”

“They’re still outside, but I’m sure they’ll be in the house in a minute.” Oliver said.

The door opened slowly, and a tall Latina girl peered out. “Is it over?” she asked. The same blue and red light shone through the long double-paned windows of this room, and her eyes widened as she took in Oliver’s suit.

She stepped away from him. “Are you the Hood?”

Oliver nodded. “I am, but I won’t hurt you. We’re trying to figure out what happened. Are you okay?”

Behind her a blond girl began to cry. “It was horrible! One minute we were talking and laughing with the prospectives, and the next minute Sasha was tearing into this football player and the swimmers were trying to kill each other!”

“Did you see anyone spray those people?” Oliver asked. He gently pushed the door open further and saw another girl lying in bed. She looked like she’d been throwing up.

The tall girl stared at him. “You mean like the Starling City Rapist? Oh my god, was it him who did this to us?”

“I don’t know,” Oliver said. “Whatever happened doesn’t seem normal, though. And the sex thing... Did you see anyone with an aerosol can?

“With a can? No,” the blonde said. “I was by the punch table. It was just the Gamma Delta sisters and the 15 athletic scholarships kids we were asked to host. No one sprayed anyone. All of us were talking about Starling’s football lineup, and Alyssa and me were wondering how much longer before these kids would leave. Then the swimmers decided to open the keg.”

“The keg?” Oliver asked.

“There was one just sitting there by the front door,” the blonde said. “The swimmers and a couple of others said they couldn’t go home without at least having a couple of drinks for ‘the authentic college experience.’”

“We didn’t want to open it. I’m not even sure why it was in there,” Alyssa said. “The party’s not until tomorrow, and the beer Gamma Delta ordered is chilling on the porch. But the boys kept demanding to drink something, so we told them they could tap the keg.”

“There was something wrong with it, though,” the other girl said. “It had a weird seal. The swimmers spent like ten minutes figuring it out. We hoped they’d give up because we didn’t really want them drinking in the house.”

“They were cute and all, but they’re not even freshmen,” Alyssa said. “Finally they got it open, and then it was complete chaos.”

“Complete chaos?”

“We hardly got any beer poured,” Alyssa said, “when the swimmers went nuts. They tipped over the tables. One of them picked up a bread knife from the table and stabbed another with it. Then someone else threw another swimmer through a front window. Everyone followed them outside to see what was happening. Only a few people even drank anything. It was so weird.”

“No one tried to stop the fight?” Oliver asked.

“Some of the guys who’d been in the kitchen came and pushed the other pair outside. I didn’t see what happened after that. I just heard the screams,” the blonde said. “I know a couple of girls called 911. They were screaming for the cops to come. We all thought those guys might start beating us up once they finished with each other!”

“Why didn’t you leave?”

“There was a stampede for the door,” Alyssa said, “and we didn’t want to get crushed. Also, we thought we should stay to help. Megan was already up here sick. We didn’t feel good about leaving her, and by then Sasha and that football player were going at it.”

“Yeah, what the hell was that?” the blonde asked. “She didn’t even like him, and all of a sudden she’s fucking him? In the living room? That’s messed up.”

“Did you see Sasha?” Alyssa asked. “Is she okay?”

“Is she the redhead?” Oliver asked. Alyssa nodded. “She’s still…with the football player. You’re sure no one was sprayed?”

“I’m positive,” Alyssa said.

“Even Megan?” He nodded at the girl in the bed.

“Megan got sick before the party even started,” Alyssa said. “We think she’s got food poisoning. Either that or some awful stomach flu.”

“So you both were downstairs the whole time, but nothing happened to you? You didn’t have any urge to fight or…”

“Screw a high school student?” the blonde asked. “No, we were both completely freaked out. This,” she waved a hand at the window, “isn’t exactly my fetish.”

“And neither of you drank the beer?”

“No. Only a couple of girls did. Sasha and Amber, and maybe someone else. I can’t remember exactly.”

Oliver heard the front door open and heavy footfalls downstairs. “Sasha’s in the bedroom at the top of the stairs,” he said. “If this is somehow the same drug as the Starling City Rapist uses, you won’t be able to break that up. The drug has to run its course. I don’t know what the police will do, but you need to tell them what you told me. Now that they’re here, you should be fine, but be careful where you party. Watch out for a short, dark haired guy with reddish facial hair. We think he might be the rapist.”

“A short, dark haired guy,” Alyssa said. “With reddish facial hair? How do you know this?”

“Don’t worry about that. Focus on protecting yourselves and your friend. Don’t blame the football player. He doesn’t know what he’s doing either.” Footfalls sounded at the bottom of the stairs. “Go,” he said.

The girls looked at each other. “What are you going to do? You have to come with us. That’s the only way out,” the blonde said.

Oliver crossed the bedroom and pried open the window. “Not the only way,” he said. He ducked his head under the lower sash, stepped out onto the narrow ledge and jumped.

  


>>\--->

  


Oliver was exhausted when he finally made it back to the Arrow Cave. It wasn’t even very late, but breathing through the gas mask had brought back memories he’d rather not relive of another horror in his past. Dig parked the van, and Dig, Oliver, and Sara made their way through Verdant’s back entrance and down the long metal stairs.

“How did you disable that huge guy?” Diggle asked Sara. “He must have been 6’5”

“I’ve been trained to take out anyone of any size,” Sara said in the clipped, cryptic way she sometimes spoke these days.

“Well, it was impressive,” Dig said. “He was angry, and you sat him down like he was a toddler.”

Oliver feet took the final stairs quickly searching the room for Felicity. He hoped she’d be out of the mood she’d been in earlier. He located her standing behind her bank of computers, holding a tangle of cords. He smiled at her, but she didn’t smile back. Her eyes went past his and over his shoulder to where... To where Sara was. Shit. Were they going to do this again?

Felicity finally mustered up something resembling a smile for Sara. She walked up to Diggle. “Have you got that sample?” she asked.

Dig handed her a Solo cup with a sheepish look. “The cops were coming through the door. I didn’t have time to ransack the cupboards.”

“It’s fine,” she said. “The cup’s new, so we shouldn’t have to worry about contaminants. Or, rather any more contaminants.” She turned to Sara. “I haven’t had time to tell you yet, but Queen Consolidated is partnering with the SCPD, and the QC lab will be testing the sample.”

Sara met Oliver’s eyes, and he shrugged. “Do you need me to test the beer?” she asked Felicity.

Felicity bit the corner of her bottom lip, and then her shoulders relaxed. “What do you think?” she asked.

Sara pulled her hands out of her back pockets. “Will the SCPD think to test the beer?”

“I don’t know,” Felicity said. “Probably? I can hack the database tomorrow to see what evidence they gather from the Gamma Delta house.”

“If they’re going to have it tested, there’s no point in me trying to access the lab,” Sara said.

Felicity nodded. “We’ll wait then.” She went over to her computer chair and sat down. “I heard what happened on Oliver and Dig’s comms. Can you tell me anything about the fight on the front lawn? What started it? If the guys were acting weird? What was the crowd like? You’re the one who got close enough to observe them. I’d like to know your thoughts.”

Sara smiled. “Sure.”

“There was something weird with the keg. You heard that, right?” Oliver asked Felicity. “Who were the guys who were fighting?”

“We’ll get to the bottom of this,” Felicity said, turning to them. “Why don’t you guys go home? You look tired. Sara and I will go over everything. I have my car, remember?”

Diggle turned to Oliver and raised his eyebrows, but they both knew a dismissal when they heard one. “Sure,” Dig said. “You need me to drop you off?”

“No, I’ll get home on my own,” Oliver said. He went to the bathroom and changed into a pair of sweats and a hoodie. He _was_ tired, but it made him nervous to see Felicity and Sara interacting this way. He’d run it off.

Twenty minutes later he was jogging through Felicity’s neighborhood. Obviously she wouldn’t be home yet. He ran the full perimeter of her apartment complex three times, and then jogged off in the direction of the nearby shopping center. At the Kmart, he picked up a sleeping bag, some underwear, and a few travel samples. The cashier recognized him, and he gave her his autograph. He stopped at the Chinese restaurant in the strip mall and got some sesame chicken takeout with those pot stickers Felicity liked. Then he jogged back.

Her car was now parked in her garage stall, and the light over the kitchen sink was on, but her bedroom light was off. Oliver took the steps up to Felicity’s front stoop quietly. He set down the bags he was carrying and reached in his pocket for his keys. He fingered the one Felicity had given him, running his thumb over the serrated edge. There was a pattern to it, all keys had one, but he hadn’t bothered to learn it yet because he hadn’t needed to. He’d just used it and walked in.

He hesitated, then dropped the keys in his pocket and raised his other hand to the door. He stood there with his hand up, knuckles extended, while images of Felicity that day went through his head. Felicity saying leave the coffee by the door. Felicity wrapped from head to toe in protective clothing. Felicity telling him to go home, telling him sex wouldn’t help. She hadn’t wanted him in the office, and obviously she didn’t want him here.

He lowered his fist. He’d known this would happen. Maybe, having spent a few weeks with him at work, in the lair, and at home, Felicity could finally see who he really was: the guy from the island, the killer from Russia. She knew about his vigilante work, but she didn’t know how many bodies he’d dropped in his time away. She’d taken his hand off her. He probably disgusted her now. He couldn’t blame her; he disgusted himself.

He turned around and pulled the keys out again, then inserted a different one in the opposite door. There was nothing in this apartment. The utilities weren’t even hooked up, but he could crash here on the floor. At least he’d be close to her. He picked up the sleeping bag and the cooling Chinese food and brought them inside. It was better if he was alone anyway. He couldn’t hurt anyone else this way.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I rewrote this chapter over and over, trying to get the tone and the dynamics just right. Leave a comment if you enjoy. Thanks!


End file.
